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It's time once again for The World of Synnibarr! Part 3: The Example of Play A Mage Warrior, a Ninja, and a Chameleon Drake recuse an Elvome or something, and also lose their ship becuase they lost the unnecessarily complicated coin flip. Part 4: Character Creation I'm going to be stepping through this and actually creating a character myself, using physical dice. And keeping track of the number of times I have to roll dice, and the number of choices I get to make. First step is generating my "Basic Charactersitics". I roll 7 20-sided dice. I get results of 14, 14, 7, 6, 5, 2, and 1. (7 rolls) Now I reroll anything under 8 until I have seven results equal to or greater than 8. So that's another 5 rolls, resulting in 12, 12, 8, 19, and 13. (12 rolls) I now discard the two lowest results (12 and 8), and roll until I have a result better than the highest one I dropped. I roll an 18 first try, for 13 total rolls, and stats of 19, 18, 14, 14, 13, 12. Now I must choose which of the four separate methods of proceeding I use:
However, I am goign to use the Traditional method, becuase it's unnecessarily stupid, and was also the only one in first edition. So, three more rolls (16), resulting in 9, 13, and 15, for... Gnome (requirement: one stat 14+), Psielf, (20, 19, 19, 18), and Shadow Warrior (18, 18, 16). I only qualify for Gnome, so that's another two rolls (18), of 16 and 20, for Shaman (17, 17), and Winged Warrior (anything). I can now choose (1 choice) between being a Gnome, a Shaman, or a Winged Warrior. I don't feel like messing with spellcasting right now, so I choose to be a Winged Warrior. I must now assign my ability scores, and apply the class bonuses (+1d6x10 strength, +3 agility). I choose (2) to place my stats a follows: Constitution 14, Strength 13, Agility 19, Dexterity 18, Intelligence 14, Wisdom 12. I roll(19) a 4 for strength bonus, giving me a final Strength of 53 and Agility 22. My Ego is the sum of Intelligenc and Wisdom, 26. I now roll(20) for random mutations, the chance of which is 5% becuase I'm not a Mutant or Bio Syntha Cyborg. I roll a 23, so I don't have any random mutations. Now I roll for random psionics, and the table informs me that becuase my intelligence is between 10 and 16, I have a 5% chance. A result of 42 means I do not have random psionics. Now I go note down all the poo poo I get from my stats! Having an agility of 22 or 23 means I get an Advantage(init) Bonus of +1.5, and two attacks per turn, meaning I act on combat segments 6 and 11. A Dexterity of 18 gives me a further +1 Advantage, for total +2.5, a Shot Bonus of +4(to-hit, rolled on d100), a Dodge Bonus of +10, and a Surprise Adjustment of -7. My base dodge is twice my agility plus the Dodge Bonus, for a normal dodge of 54, and a Beam Attack Dodge of 75% of this, or 40.5. My block score is equal to my dodge. My 54 Strength means my maximum lift is 3,700 pounds, and when I hit with a weapon, I add 10 points of damage to its base dice, and then multiply the result by 19. High strength is really good. I'm goign to go out of order and consult chapter 12 here for the throwing objects chart, which indicates I can throw a 370 pound object at 243 miles per hour a distance of 6,660 feet, and the object will take its weight in pounds in damage, modified by the value on the strength chart in mph it was moving. 240 is x85 damage, so this hypothetical 370 pound object would take 31,450 damage (before damage reduction) when it hit something over a mile away. My wisdom of between 8 and 14 gives me a 30% chance to locate traps. My constitution of 14 gives me +140 Life Points, of which I have 1d6*100, and I roll(21) a 1, giving me a total of 240 life points. I am flimsy as hell. I also have a bunch of base Fate rolls, but I'll get to those later in another update. My Ego of 24 gives me +2% Fate bonus verses Magic, Psionics, and Earthpower, and non Reaction Adjustment (which makes people like me more). I now roll (22) for my current Ego Flux, getting a result of 31, indicating that my Personality is "Good+", although this isn't explained. Once I reach level 25, I need to re-roll this. I now note down my base surprise scores, which are fixed off a table based on my class. I also apply my dexterity-based surprise class adjustment. I now have to roll for my physical appearance! I am a (22) 1d6=3, Female; (23) 1d6=4, Indian; with (24) 1d6=5, Silver hair; (25) 1d8=3, Gray eyes; who is (26) 1d100=84, Left handed; (27) 48+6d6=74 inches tall, with a wingspan of 148 inches because I'm a Winged Warrior, who weighs (28)1d6*10+90=120 pounds, and I am 1d6=4 of average appearance. I am (29) 18+(1d4-1)=19 years old, and will die of old age at 85. I now roll (30) for my starting social status and (31) resulting money! I roll a 45, indicating I am of Normal status, giving me 1d20*1000 starting $. I have $10,000 starting cash. I now choose (3) my Aura, which is basically alignment. I choose the Neutral alignment of Green becuase it's slight on the "good" side, resulting in one of the only auras which doesn't have draconian behavior limitations and/or make you a psychopath. I now read the section on Karma, which boils down to act according to your alignment or the GM will screw you, and if you do really well you get a point which can give you +2 to all abilities on your next character. Also, "Both types of karma are kept track of by Fate and the player and do not pass from one referee's campaign to another without express consent." Implying that characters might do so without express consent.  And now, I need to go find my class description and copy down all the poo poo I get! First I get "skills for all Guild-Trained Adventurers", which consists of "Balancing and Juggling; Climbing; Combat, Dodging and Blocking; Combat, Hand-Held Weapons; Combat, Hand-to-Hand; Combat, Projectile and Throwing Weapons; Computer Operation; Cooking; Detect Traps and Secret Doors; Fishing; Math, Basic; Medical, First Aid; Navigation, Air; Navigation, Land; Navigation, Water; Piloting, Boats; Reading; Running; Sewing; Survival, Wilderness; Swimming, Basic; Weaving; Wood Carving; Writing". As a Winged Warrior specifically, my Natural Abilities are Enhanced Senses, giving me "enhanced" sight and hearing with no explanation of what that means, double visual range compared to a human and 20% bonus on surprise rolls (which I think is separate from my base surprise class for some unclear reason); two inherent 10ths of damage reduction; 50% resistance to magic, psionics, and earthpower; +5% on my dodge when flying; "Two steel-hard feathers I can use as weapons", which do 1d8*100 modified by strength adjustment (I think these are part of my wings, but it doesn't specify), and the additional skills of Acting, Comedian, and Hunting. My Basic Abilities are... oop. (32 rolls) a 50% chance of having a "master mutation". I roll a 36, so I do! I'll get to that later. I also have Psionic Tracking, at a 50%+1% per level chance, with unlimited range, which allows me to lock on to up to five "things" at a time, as long as I do so within five days of having last seen it. I also have a permanent Cloak of Mist in my skin, as per the third-level Mage Warrior spell Cloak of Mist. This means I am invisible to clairvoyance, crystal balls, sense-life forms, enhanced awareness, detect danger, and locate person or object spells, from people of equal or lower level. I also have special Winged Warrior abilities! I roll (33) a d4 to see how many I have, and get a 3, indicating I have 1. (A roll of 1 or 4 gives me 2, while 2 or 3 gives me 1.  ) I then roll (34) for both of them (35) randomly, getting results 1 and 2, Quickness and Super-Strength. Quickness takes... 1/4th attack to use, can costs 1 Con Point per turn, and gives me +10% dodge, +1 attack/turn, and +1 Advantage, while Super Strength takes the same time, costs 2 con points per turn, and adds 200 strength, plus 10 per level after 5th, to my strength score while in use, letting me throw things even farther away.Now, back to that Master Mutations. Mutations come in lesser, Master, and Major, increasing level of awesomeness. I roll (36) to find what I have, getting a result of 92: Tricancellation! This lets me either create a beam, or make a flat 10-foot diameter shield, which will "cancel any of the three powers stated in the next paragraph when the beam strikes a person or monster". Or I can shoot it at a spot, creating a 20-foot plus 10 foot per level sphere which will nullify am area, and a bunch of fiddly poo poo about levels of "the spellcaster" (  ) and using more Con points and blah blah blah. It will cancel magic, psionics, earthpower, chi, mutations, alchemy, or "energy", but only three at once, which I specify when I make the beam or shield.I now get to choose (4) how to spend my whopping 10 skill points. Because I am tryign to make Synnibarr look bad, I learn Motion Picture Direction and Cryptography for 5 skill points each. Except then when I check what my base chance of success at them is (my ego score, for a whopping 24% on cryptography, and ego +10 for motion picture directing), I find that I need to know Linguistics, Math, Basic, Reading, and Writing for Cryptography, and I don't know Linguistics, and Cinematography, Holography, Math, Basic, Photography, Reading, and Writing for Motion Picture directing. So instead I learn Landscaping (2 points, 65%+5% per extra skill point), Massaging (2 points, Ego score +20%, +25% per extra skill point), Mime (2 points, Ego +35%+1 per skill point),Glass blowing (2 points, 60%+5% per extra point), and Combat, Grappling (2 points, Dex + Agility, also gives me +1 to Strength) so I can actually grab people to throw them over the horizon. I can now choose (5) how to spend my starting cash to equip myself, but I'll handle that later. I made a whole 5 choices, and rolled to randomly determine 36 loving things during character generation. But wait! What if we DID choose to be an Ice Lott instead? Well, we'd spend 140 of our 180 skill points on it, and gain: +1d6*100 Strength, +2 agility, +1 dex, and 50%+15/level resistance to alchemy, psionics, and mutations, flat out immunity to Earthpower, gain 5 skill points per level after fourth, and learn all non-martial-art combat skills, Ambush, Concealment, Disguise, Impersonation, Infiltration, Moving Silently, Reading, Swimming, Basic, and Writing, the Major Mutation Thermal Kinetic(only for cold modes), the Master Mutations Metamorph and Control Body Molecules, and "Freeze instantly with touch". Metamorph lets us turn into somebody else, or heal ourselves completely, and Control Body Molecules lets us do poo poo like turn our hands into keys or give ourselves 3 10ths (out of maximum 4) of protection. Thermal Kinetic (cousin to Energy Kinetic, Environmental Kinetic, Gravity Kinetic, Hyperkinetic, Major Temporal Kinetic, Mass Molecule Kinetic, and Sonic Kinetic) will, in this case, let us lower the temperature in an area, fire and ice bolt which freezes somebody solid, meaning thy either die if they fail their Metabolic Shock roll, or go into suspended animation if they succeed, and we can make it a wide beam to hit multiple people at once, and make an ice shield with 3 million life points. We can't buy a lot more with our remaining 40 skill points, but we could take some "Recessive Mutations" to get more skill points. Things like Acrophobia, being blind, claustrophobic, and so on. Tune in next time, for More character creation! Featuring the complete bullshit Immortal Born option!
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 01:43 |
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| # ? May 26, 2013 04:25 |
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This is currently my favourite discussion thread anywhere on the forums. Good work, everyone involved. Would anyone be interested in reading about Immortal a chunk of 90s so concentrated it bends light and lowers sperm motility?
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 02:32 |
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Sticky Beethoven posted:This is currently my favourite discussion thread anywhere on the forums. Good work, everyone involved. Would anyone be interested in reading about Immortal a chunk of 90s so concentrated it bends light and lowers sperm motility?
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 02:38 |
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I have a copy of the Dragon Ball Z adventure game. While not totally terrible it does come up with some funny solutions for the fact that it will be having you roll thousands of D6.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 02:55 |
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I own a copy of Immortal; we can commiserate over the fantastic ideas buried beneath horrible rules and smothering layers of pretension.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 03:42 |
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I just can't imagine why the creator of Synnibarr decided to make the character creation so random. Why implement a bunch of classes, and then arbitrarily limit any given character to three options? And what is the point of rolling 18+(1d4-1) to determine the character's age?Zereth posted:I now choose (3) my Aura, which is basically alignment. I choose the Neutral alignment of Green becuase it's slight on the "good" side, resulting in one of the only auras which doesn't have draconian behavior limitations and/or make you a psychopath.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 03:52 |
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NotInventedHere posted:And what is the point of rolling 18+(1d4-1) to determine the character's age? You can't have any 22 year old PC's. That would just be too crazy.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 03:53 |
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NotInventedHere posted:I just can't imagine why the creator of Synnibarr decided to make the character creation so random. Why implement a bunch of classes, and then arbitrarily limit any given character to three options? And what is the point of rolling 18+(1d4-1) to determine the character's age? quote:I'd like to hear more about the draconian behavior limitations. The World of Synnibarr, Part 4.5: Auras and Draconian Behavior Limitations Thdere's nine auras, divided into three groups of three, "Good", "Neutral", and "Evil". Good consits of Gold, Silver, and Blue, Neutral Green, Violet, and Amber, and Evil Gray, Red, and Scarlet. Gold: "Fanatically good. Hates and seeks to destroy all evil and semievil creatures, including their closest friends if may they show even the slightest tendency toward evil. They are the ultimate force for good." Silver: "Doer of good. Hates evil but will not necessarily slay evildoers. Usually a silver aura will endeavor to stop and capture evildoers but not at the risk of a hostage's life. In this situation, silvers will not hesitate to do all they can to save the innocent." Blue: "Heroes. They work to reform evildoers. They will not take another's life under any circumstance, not even to save themselves.They always attempt to perform rescues and will subdue and capture their quarry rather than kill them." Green: "These characters have a tendency for the good but they also have a mischievous streak that allows them complete freedom. They will never perform evil acts except under provocation or extreme pressure." Violet: "Totally neutral. These characters do as they wish and are concerned only with themselves. They will not perform good or evil acts unless it is necessary and not threatening to their own plans." Amber: "A person with a tendency for mischief, who does not care for others unless they are close friends. They do not value their enemies' lives at all." Gray: "Villain. An evildoer with a marginal respect for life. They do not kill needlessly, but will prey upon others for survival." Red: "Evildoer. Villains(  ) who tend to use killing as a way to win a conflict. However, they prefer their greatest enemies to be subdued and to grovel at their feet. They perform evil with pleasure. Still, they do not arbitrarily waste innocent lives- Unless their victim is good-natured. They will attempt to slay until they run the risk of defeat, whereupon they will cease their aggressions and retreat."Scarlet: "A fiend. The ultimate evil. A character with this aura will actively seek out and destroy good or semigood creatures, taking extreme pleasure in slaying the innocent. These beings will turn on even their closest associates at the first sign of weakness." Even the neutral ones are oddly restrictive.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 04:06 |
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Halloween Jack posted:I own a copy of Immortal; we can commiserate over the fantastic ideas buried beneath horrible rules and smothering layers of pretension. Frankly, there isn't much fantastic about it at all. There's Just. So. Much.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 06:25 |
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Sticky Beethoven posted:This is currently my favourite discussion thread anywhere on the forums. Good work, everyone involved. Would anyone be interested in reading about Immortal a chunk of 90s so concentrated it bends light and lowers sperm motility? Man, opening that website gave me a shock. I saw that picture of a woman in a low cut dress and some cleavage, vamping it up. I said to myself, "That woman looks a lot like Claudia Christian from Bablyon 5. But it can't be, because this is a table-top game company and they probably couldn't afford her, but got a decent facsimile". Then I look over to the left side of the page. "Immortal Millenium: Claudia Christian as "Shade"" 
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 06:54 |
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Was that the game where you played as basically a sort of mini-god and you had an alternate form called a "himsati?"
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 07:10 |
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Oh, I just remembered a game that's perfect for this thread: Phoenix Command. Insanely complex gunfighting rules. http://grognard.com/reviews/phoenix.txt quote:in the basic book there are 39 different hit locations for a human, from head glance to liver spine, heart lung, etc. All the frag, shotgun and auto fire rules use geometry to calculate how many bits hit a target. basically of a 5 round burst is fired into a 2 yard hex then there will be about 1 bullet every 40 cm. so as a persons chest is around 30 - 40 cm wide then there is a % chance of being hit by one bullet. if the 5 rounds were fired into a .5 yard area then there would be an automatic hit or 2. This may change with range firing stance etc.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 07:54 |
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theironjef posted:Was that the game where you played as basically a sort of mini-god and you had an alternate form called a "himsati?" Among other things, yes.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 09:25 |
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Zereth posted:my Natural Abilities are Enhanced Senses, giving me "enhanced" sight and hearing with no explanation of what that means, double visual range compared to a human and 20% bonus on surprise rolls Erm, surely the double visual range is enhanced sight, and the bonus to not being surprised is enhanced hearing? Apart from poor formatting in the rulebook that seems pretty straightforward. Also: I have to admit that Synnibar character sounds like he could be pretty fun to play... in another system. Maybe there's hope for Synnibar as a generator of totally batshit insane Wushu or PDQ characters, or something.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 09:28 |
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Also: I have to admit that Synnibar character sounds like he could be pretty fun to play... in another system. Maybe there's hope for Synnibar as a generator of totally batshit insane Wushu or PDQ characters, or something.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 11:42 |
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Zereth posted:Plus 1d4-1, in all cases. But why the hell would he do this? 18+(1d4-1) is the same loving thing as 17+1d4. Did he seriously just want it to look more complicated? Zereth posted:Gold: "Fanatically good. Hates and seeks to destroy all evil and semievil creatures, including their closest friends if may they show even the slightest tendency toward evil. They are the ultimate force for good." Zereth posted:Red: "Evildoer. Villains( I'm almost impressed that he managed to make his Lawful Good analog more evil than his Neutral Evil analog.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 14:21 |
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clockworkjoe posted:Oh, I just remembered a game that's perfect for this thread: Phoenix Command. Insanely complex gunfighting rules. Reposting a post I did on Phoenix Command from the Rule Books thread... quote:BTW, this recent derail has made me look back into Phoenix Command. That game has some known problems, the least of which is realism: in comparison to T2K, a Line Soldier in Phoenix Command can be expected to hit a stationary targets from a kneeling or prone position an average range of 100 yards with a M16 about 70% of the time. The problem was finding out this percentage: Phoenix Command uses so many derived statistics and cross-referencing with tables to find out the chance-to-hit.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 14:25 |
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Daeren posted:Changing Breeds Part I: The Introduction I posted this to my facebook and someone from my LARP responded: quote:It's not the worse thing they've ever written, sorry, these guys are idiots. missing the point
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 15:13 |
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quote:If they just had STs that are too pussy to use the background right, that's not White Wolf's fault. This is hilarious. "Oh yeah you guys don't like the book? It must be because your ST is too pussy to investigate the complex emotional and social issues that surround the subject of animal loving." Alternatively, don't have "Skill Focus: Making the ST Man Up"? Then you don't get to be the dog-fucker.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 18:10 |
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Sticky Beethoven posted:Among other things, yes. I tried to play Immortal with a few friends one weekend in high school. We literally couldn't create characters. No idea what edition we had, but the general problem was that information about how to play the loving thing was all buried in random sidebars all over the book, generally taking backstage to bad fiction. So we'd get to a point where the book would say "well this rating depends on that stat" and we'd have never heard of that stat and couldn't find it in there anywhere. All I remember is the word Himsati and that it seemed to largely be about weird tribes of somewhat-godly dudes with extremely varied powersets that sort of hated each other.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 18:21 |
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Erm, surely the double visual range is enhanced sight, and the bonus to not being surprised is enhanced hearing? Apart from poor formatting in the rulebook that seems pretty straightforward. quote:Also: I have to admit that Synnibar character sounds like he could be pretty fun to play... in another system. Maybe there's hope for Synnibar as a generator of totally batshit insane Wushu or PDQ characters, or something. tzirean posted:But why the hell would he do this? 18+(1d4-1) is the same loving thing as 17+1d4. Did he seriously just want it to look more complicated? quote:I'm almost impressed that he managed to make his Lawful Good analog more evil than his Neutral Evil analog.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 18:36 |
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theironjef posted:No idea what edition we had, but the general problem was that information about how to play the loving thing was all buried in random sidebars all over the book, generally taking backstage to bad fiction. quote:All I remember is the word Himsati and that it seemed to largely be about weird tribes of somewhat-godly dudes with extremely varied powersets that sort of hated each other. It's a shame the game was so bad, because the base ideas about "auras" and such were pretty cool. I'd say more but I don't want to steal Sticky Beethoven's thunder.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 19:33 |
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I will say this. having been a part of a group that played both Fatal and Synnibarr to see how bad they really were, we at least had an enjoyable time playing Synnibarr. Fatal was just pure misery. Like 4 hours to roll characters and about 20 minutes of all the PCs being raped to death. Our characters at least got to do some cool things in Synnibarr. I don't have the book with me but I recommend people that do read the section about Gnomes. My friend running the game hadn't done so before and I ended up rolling Gnome for my class. Much amusement ensued.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 19:34 |
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Zereth posted:Yeah, if there's one thing Synnibarr isn't, it's bland. poo poo is weird. World of Synnibarr: "It's the Synnibarriest!" 
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 19:34 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:Immortal had the worst layout. They had the late-90's-White-Wolf thing of making new terms for everything, but instead of defining the terms where they were first used, or providing a normal glossary, they spread the glossary across the entire book with two or three entries at the bottom of each page.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 19:53 |
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Halloween Jack posted:Immortal was also one of those games that tries to be original by coming up with new names for every single bit of gaming terminology, including "turn," "action," "penalty," and "points you have in something." (You can spend motes of immaculum to get more than one escapade in a clash, but don't forget to subtract your hostiles.) Are those the actual terms it uses?
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 20:12 |
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recon_etc posted:Are those the actual terms it uses? Translation: "You can spend magic points to get more actions in a fight, but you'll suffer penalty dice."
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 20:16 |
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Halloween Jack posted:Immortal was also one of those games that tries to be original by coming up with new names for every single bit of gaming terminology, including "turn," "action," "penalty," and "points you have in something." (You can spend motes of immaculum to get more than one escapade in a clash, but don't forget to subtract your hostiles.)  And I thought Synnibarr was weird, but it has the excuse of most of this poo poo being from *checks* My first edition says copyright 1991. Huh, thought it was older. Okay, never mind! It's just using odd terms to be different/becuase Raven c.s. McCracken is weird.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 20:39 |
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Zereth posted:Yeah, if there's one thing Synnibarr isn't, it's bland. poo poo is weird. Actually, though, Synnibarr is MEGA bland. It has lot of goofy poo poo with goofy names but in terms of the structure of the actual game as it is played, it's essentially "mega-elf enters the very dark forest and fires an earthpower beam at a mega-tiger". Instead of dealing 3 damage you deal 3000, but it's all flash and all but zero substance. The hollow earth supertech world-city, for instance, is barely detailed, and the details it does have are embarrassingly, unimaginatively mundane - it's basically Baby's First D&D Town in terms of the meat on its bones. There's a guild for every class and some shops, that's it. All the shopkeepers and guild leaders are statted out and as a result they're pretty much the most important, engaging NPCs in the book. The overworld map where you're supposed to spend your time adventuring is literally some rough continental shapes marked COLD AREA or DRAGON PEAK. Once you get past the fact that you're using a Midnight Sunstone Bazooka to battle a user of Venderant Nalaberong, there's absolutely nothing there.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 20:42 |
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Android Blues posted:Actually, though, Synnibarr is MEGA bland. me posted:You have to dig through the game to really see why it has the reputation that it does. What's really striking is the near-total failure of imagination. For all the effort that was put into this thing, the result is as banal, bland, and unfantastic as can be imagined. The God of Disease and Sickness is named "Plague". Terrain features have evocative names like "The Great Swamp", "The Hot Cliffs", "Volcanic Peninsula", and "Grass Lands". The giant city of Terra is fully detailed - it has organizations named "The Assassin's Guild" and "Artists' Association" - but most of the detail is devoted to all of the shops. There's one for each race and each occupation (the "Mage Guild", the "Gnome Lord Guild", the "Golden Tiger Guild"), each staffed by a 50th level example of that race/class, and all keeping regular office hours (also detailed). The remaining shops are just as inspiring - the Poison Shop is down the block from the Armor shop which is near the Knife Shop and the Rope and Cable Shop. It's like playing Bard's Tale or Might & Magic - early computer games where the cities existed solely to service adventurers in as functional a manner as possible.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 21:03 |
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Android Blues posted:The hollow earth supertech world-city, for instance, is barely detailed, But yeah, you're right, it's a weird mix of crazy rear end poo poo, misused terms, and bland. But it's definitely different. HOWEVER. The Ultimate Adventurer's Guide tries to add a lot of flavor and background info and such, and only succeeds in making poo poo stupider. I'll be getting to that later.
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| # ? Jun 29, 2011 21:05 |
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If ever you get bored mining Synnibar for terrible, you can drink straight from the well.McCracken's website posted:Raven c.s. McCracken is perhaps best known for his creation: The World of Synnibarr. For which he has sincerely apologized, except for the Flying Grizzlies. Nope, hasn't changed a bit. Except he lost the sweet perm 
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 00:13 |
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My game store has a copy of Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth for sale. I'm very tempted...
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 00:48 |
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The Everlasting: Book of the Unliving: An Interactive Legendmaking Experience by Steven Brown. We all know that the World of Darkness games are the top-dog in secret-urban-monsters RPG genre. However, these games were obviously not enough for White Wolf author Steven Brown, the author of such classics as The Player's Guide to the Sabbat, The Storyteller's Guide to the Sabbat and  Freak Legion.The Everlasting is his solution. It's the World of Darkness with all the "bad" stuff - "immature" quests for power, monty-haulism, and the tendency to want to play superheroes - taken out and replaced with a heaping of mysticism and whining about how civilization has destroyed story-telling and we're all dead inside because of it. It's also the vehicle by which we are supposed to better ourselves - but I'll get to that in a bit. The game is made up of four corebooks, each of which offers three playable splats and two splats that you should definitely not try to play but which are given a chapter and a character creation write-up anyways. You are given a bit of powers for each one, but the vast majority of characters abilities are in a different book. Every splat section has a big-rear end XP chart for buying abilities in this separate book. You know this book is going to be awesome, because he doesn't even make it past the first page before he starts needing to refer to the glossary. The credits thank the: Inventor and Artisan (Creation, Design and Development) Scribe (Writing and Editing) Limner Administrator (Art Direction) Limner of Tome Cover (Cover Artist) Heralds (Graphic Design) Wise and Noble Oracles (Business Consultants) We also get a shout-out to God and a Blessed Be to the Bible to start out, so I'm definitely getting a Mark Rein Dot Hagen feel already. I'm ready to get blessed with gnostic wisdom for playing a game about ghouls, let's go to the first chapter. You know, after the 11 page intro story involving Teombi, the black "tribal witchdoctor and priest of the dark nature religion of his people" teaching his occult secrets to a blond-haired superman who then moves to the united states and finds "his career as a speaker at American lyceums about both improved health through natural remedies and African folk-magic and religion." Book One: Orientation: Into the Darkness Like all good vampire books, we gotta start off with an Anne Rice quote. I've never read Anne Rice so I'm not sure how sad all her vampires are, but Louis sounds like a really sad dude. To give the book credit, the first image here is a rad skull zombie chowing down on a fat accountant.  This is immediately undermined by the intro: "Do you believe in the supernatural?" This guys answer is, "You might not, but you probably should because it owns and science is alright but it's just missing something about the soul of mankind." I kinda want to type this out to get the full impact, here. I'll just do one of the choicer bits: How can something be proven not to exist just because you don't see it every day? Can you disprove atomic particles or the Crimean War just because you have not been a personal witness to either? And if you are willing to take science as fact because it can be defined or because it is given credence by authority, do you reject the supernatural because it has never been defined? Certainly there are people in positions of authority (other than scientific positions) who believe in the supernatural, including all religious leaders and many political leaders. Wrap it up sciencailures, you can't prove this book won't make you virile and attractive and a social butterfly. No technocracy here. Welcome to the goody room. Now we get into the actual game section. I'm going to post a picture here, because I'm not sure if the description can really do this justice. Every chapter is made up of normal text, and then lots of the rules and terminologies that are written in tiny italics in the margins of almost every chapter in the book.  Imagine this for like a hundred pages. The character creation section has tinier character creation rules, it's madness. Here's Steven Brown to explain what the game is and why you should be PUMPED UP right now: This foundation book provides what you need to know in order for you to take your own Hero's Journey, developed by the great mythologist Joseph Campbell and described in chapter 13. You were called to adventure when you bought this book and now your journey into the Secret World waits... ...Through The Everlasting you can build your own personal mythology, reflecting your fears, doubts, dreams, loves, hatreds, courage, and strengths. You can display and study your own convictions and assume other personalities. Interacting with other participants, you will see yourself reflected in other people and other people reflected in yourself. Hopefully you will grow spiritually, emotionally, creatively, and socially from this experience and it will aid you in your day-to-day life..
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 01:01 |
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Mormon Star Wars posted:The Everlasting: Book of the Unliving: An Interactive Legendmaking Experience by Steven Brown. You must discuss Deathmech Cyborgs. Say it with me, class: Deathmech Cyborgs.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 01:47 |
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Is anyone going to bite the bullet and do Black Tokyo?
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 04:28 |
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Alright, so, between the MMBN superthread and this, I finally decided to join up on SA, and I figured I would offer up the fresh slice of madness that is Anima: Beyond Fantasy. Anyone else interested / own a copy? I'd like to do an actual example of play just to show how mind-bending this thing can be.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 05:31 |
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Ariamaki posted:Alright, so, between the MMBN superthread and this, I finally decided to join up on SA, and I figured I would offer up the fresh slice of madness that is Anima: Beyond Fantasy. The only thing I really know about Anima is that I confuse it all the time with Eoris. BTW, this is the character sheet for Eoris....  I know Anima has a miniatures game. I want to believe that it actually has a playable set of rules.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 05:42 |
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Ariamaki posted:Alright, so, between the MMBN superthread and this, I finally decided to join up on SA, and I figured I would offer up the fresh slice of madness that is Anima: Beyond Fantasy.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 05:49 |
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| # ? May 26, 2013 04:25 |
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I wanna join in on this fun, but I don't have anything too monstrously obscure. Maybe I'll just do a character creation walkthrough with the Marvel Ultimate Powers Book. That's always good for a laugh.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2011 06:02 |
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