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Dammit Who? posted:Golly! I've played characters where I actually preferred for them to fail at their ultimate goals before, even in systems like D&D, because for whatever reason it was more interesting that way. I had no idea what I was actually doing was pointless and stupid and I should have just gone off and written a novella! No idea why you had to come on so hostile like that, but whatever. Purple pretty much got the point I was going to make across anyways. You don't need rules to "determine who wins and who loses" and you don't need rules that you must lose or win either. Anyways, sorry for the derail and here's looking forward to the poo poo that is the CBoE's. Hipster Occultist fucked around with this message at May 11, 2012 around 11:01 |
| # ? May 11, 2012 10:59 |
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| # ? Jun 20, 2013 05:24 |
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Rumda posted:This ... This game. Are you saying that in a single group you can have a renegade rebel cyborg gorilla Viking, a Roman legionnaire who stole a horse with a built in jet-pack from barbarians, a martial artist who if she gets blasted with too much magic will turn back in to a rat, as well as a stereotypical neck-beard who just happened to stumble across a portal to the netherworld, and it makes sense for the four of them to work together? Yes, why is someone not running it?
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| # ? May 11, 2012 11:02 |
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ProfessorCirno posted:We start off the introduction with some loving awesome artwork of an elf who's just going to ruin your day. Days. All the days. This is something relatively common in the book actually - there's a good number of pictures of elven warriors about to wreck your rear end, far more then there are picture of dandy fancy foppish elves, which I greatly appreciate. No kidding. Are you sourcing these pictures from the corresponding sections of the book? Like does it really go from, "...elves are wondrous creatures of might and whimsy, life eternal and so forth, and only thieves ironically," to a human-faced spider monster and a bunch of shadows being butchered in the background? I'm looking forward to seeing how far this disconnect goes.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 11:09 |
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Hallgerd posted:No kidding. Are you sourcing these pictures from the corresponding sections of the book? Like does it really go from, "...elves are wondrous creatures of might and whimsy, life eternal and so forth, and only thieves ironically," to a human-faced spider monster and a bunch of shadows being butchered in the background? Sorta. The introduction is pretty short - it opens and ends with those two art pages. In general the art will be cool and entirely unrelated, but I'll try to only post the cool ones. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at May 11, 2012 around 11:15 |
| # ? May 11, 2012 11:11 |
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Mr. Maltose posted:Why is it pretentious to maybe be serious for a night a month? That is the number one complaint about this sort of game and it makes no sense. Sorry, I did not intend to declare anyone who took it seriously as pretentious. What I meant is basically what Purple elaborated on. Hell, I know I would play this entirely seriously and love every minute of it. Games heavy on investment are amazing when you play them with people who both take them seriously enough but don't also forget that they are still games. Sadly those people are rare. As put better by other posters, Polaris does not make it easy to accomodate new players either - you are into this stuff or you are not.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 11:18 |
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Rumda posted:This ... This game. Are you saying that in a single group you can have a renegade rebel cyborg gorilla Viking, a Roman legionnaire who stole a horse with a built in jet-pack from barbarians, a martial artist who if she gets blasted with too much magic will turn back in to a rat, as well as a stereotypical neck-beard who just happened to stumble across a portal to the netherworld, and it makes sense for the four of them to work together? Well yeah. I don't see any problem with a balanced party like that.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 11:45 |
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PurpleXVI posted:But when it's pre-determined that it's how things will go, it just loses interest for me. Thing is, it's not that it's predetermined to go that way, it's that the character has already made the sacrifice. The point is that there is no way out, your character knows this, and steps up to the line anyway. It doesn't work as well for the themes if they are choosing merely a dangerous path, they are choosing a suicidal path and the mechanics support that idea. quote:I think that is what is bugging other people here as well: Not the fact that you CAN lose, but the fact that you MUST lose. I think the disconnect here is that it's not a question of losing. The end result may be a foregone conclusion, but there is value in the journey. Another way to look at it is that the victory is reaching the last point before the fall then dying when you can do no more good, but before you do unimaginable harm.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 13:31 |
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Gambor posted:Thing is, it's not that it's predetermined to go that way, it's that the character has already made the sacrifice. The point is that there is no way out, your character knows this, and steps up to the line anyway. It doesn't work as well for the themes if they are choosing merely a dangerous path, they are choosing a suicidal path and the mechanics support that idea. How is "you must make characters who have to lose" any different from "you are predetermined to lose"? And again, a "journey" where you already know what the end point is and where the middle ground is so rigidly structured... I'm really having trouble envisioning how any two games of Polaris would be particularly different from each other. Plus, even the sacrifices sound pretty meaningless considering that the world seems pretty much doomed as well. At least in other somewhat negatively-charged games you can win battles or advance the war for your side, even if the odds are heavily stacked against you. But from what I read of Polaris... all you can do is struggle pointlessly, perhaps bravely and dramatically, and then die without having changed a thing for the better.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 13:35 |
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ProfessorCirno posted:Sorta. The introduction is pretty short - it opens and ends with those two art pages. You mentioned that the author later apologized for the Bladesinger kit, why is that? My second edition days were pretty short and I never saw many kits or alternate classes even.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 13:57 |
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Count Chocula posted:It's a genre thing. In Feng Shui you'll probably win. In Call of Cthulhu you'll probably lose. In Paranoia everything will probably blow up. I enjoy wallowing in that attitude of decadence and decay, but I'm a pretentious literary major who gets off to photos of abandoned Detroit buildings. If it's not your thing, play something else. Feng Shui is actually pretty open about the fact that it considers things perfectly in-genre if the entire party fails and dies in montage of the good times and a hail of bullets. (But yes, not as likely as in Paranoia or Polaris.) Anyway, with a vote of one to nothing, we're getting Seed of the New Flesh!
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| # ? May 11, 2012 14:14 |
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PurpleXVI posted:How is "you must make characters who have to lose" any different from "you are predetermined to lose"? Again, it's not a question of losing, what I said was you make characters who have already sacrificed themselves. Your character will die or fall, but he can do so heroically, or cravenly; he can do so randomly or meaningfully. quote:But from what I read of Polaris... all you can do is struggle pointlessly, perhaps bravely and dramatically, and then die without having changed a thing for the better. You can't win the war, you can change the war. You can stop the threat in front of you, even if you can't save the world forever. If that's not enough for you to feel as though you have "won", then it's not, but you have to understand that it is at least different.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 14:18 |
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WhitemageofDOOM posted:Yes, why is someone not running it? Seriously why is no one running it
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| # ? May 11, 2012 14:22 |
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PurpleXVI posted:I'm really having trouble envisioning how any two games of Polaris would be particularly different from each other. See, this is the joy of it. There are so many, many ways to "lose" (I don't know why we're obsessed with winning or losing here but whatever). Man, we need Doc Hawkins in this thread, he's like the Number One Guy on SA for this stuff.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 14:27 |
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Gambor posted:Again, it's not a question of losing, what I said was you make characters who have already sacrificed themselves. Your character will die or fall, but he can do so heroically, or cravenly; he can do so randomly or meaningfully. Alright, let me try to rephrase my criticism to see if it makes more sense to you with a different wording: It doesn't feel like Polaris is a game. It feels more like a pre-written piece of theater that everyone knows the script to, then they sit down and act out their roles. There are no real surprises, you know how everything is likely to work out on account of the structure of the game, random factors seem minimal and the permitted archetype of character is exactly one. I could see it as maybe being interesting to play through once, perhaps if the players have only been told the structure necessary for them to play and nothing else. But... not beyond that. Because you know how it's going to go, everything is going to go downhill, you're going to fail, and what you did isn't going to matter. And no, even if you reword it, it's still the same thing. A sacrifice that you're predetermined to make is a sacrifice that just... doesn't have any pathos to me. No emotional weight. If there WAS an option to go home and live a happy life instead, or at least to run away and live, then yes, a sacrifice would matter. But in this case, there is only the sacrifice, and no other option.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 14:27 |
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Mr. Maltose posted:See, this is the joy of it. There are so many, many ways to "lose" (I don't know why we're obsessed with winning or losing here but whatever). Man, we need Doc Hawkins in this thread, he's like the Number One Guy on SA for this stuff. Look, LIFE has a pre-written ending. You die, and you probably don't change much. Is that saying all lives are the same? The presidency always lasts 4 or 8 years, and then it ends. So each presidency is the same, and it's accomplished nothing? As Mors points out, even great action movies can end in a hail of bullets (most of the ones I'm thinking of are Westerns). It feels like the last two pages should go in grognards.txt, because the idea that a game is meaningless because we know the world eventually dies sounds like a fallacy that comes from too many cheesy power fantasies. And that's okay! Power fantasies can be fun! But even the Norse Gods died. Even the Eternal Champions died. Even Gilgamesh, the first epic hero, was ultimately defeated by mortality. It's not a pretty thing to confront, but ignoring it just feels hollow. The point in playing such a game would be to luxuriate in that feeling of bittersweet hopelessness. Let me out it this way: if you were running a Feng Shui set game about the last year of the Four Monarch's empire before the world changed and they were exiled to hell, how would you run it? The Tolkien elves going to the Grey Havens? Any Dying Earth books? Etc. I haven't played Polaris but I'm defending it because we NEED games to simulate that mood. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at May 11, 2012 around 15:03 |
| # ? May 11, 2012 15:00 |
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PurpleXVI posted:I think that is what is bugging other people here as well: Not the fact that you CAN lose, but the fact that you MUST lose. Even if you do something awesome in Pendragon, eventually your character will die. Does that count as 'losing'? If I know how Hamlet ends, does this mean I should never watch the play? Polaris isn't about escapism, but it's still possible to be a hero. It is, in fact, possible to win great victories in Polaris, but you also realize that, like in many heroic myths, you'll need to make a choice at the end of your arc. It's like the choice for a D&D character to either die of old age or to pervert the natural order and become a Lich, throwing away everything for immortality. It's definitely possible to go out in a blaze of glory. As a matter of fact, embracing your own death is one way to cement your glory, and a tremendous way of saying 'gently caress YOU' to the Mistaken. I will cover this in the next segment.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 15:10 |
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My copy of Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time has the blurb 'The last story in the annals of the human race'. Don't you want to play that?
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| # ? May 11, 2012 15:17 |
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PurpleXVI posted:And no, even if you reword it, it's still the same thing. A sacrifice that you're predetermined to make is a sacrifice that just... doesn't have any pathos to me. No emotional weight. If there WAS an option to go home and live a happy life instead, or at least to run away and live, then yes, a sacrifice would matter. But in this case, there is only the sacrifice, and no other option. The sacrifice is already made, past tense, you did it already. The game charts what happens next, how that sacrifice plays out. Let me be clear, I understand what you are saying. That you think that each time one plays Polaris the game will be more or less the same as any other time. I'm saying that I disagree with that conclusion, as there is more to the story than the terminus. The game has a more limited scope than some others, sure, but there is more than one way the story of standing against overwhelming darkness and corruption can play out, even if then end is always going to be getting overwhelmed or corrupted. Gambor fucked around with this message at May 11, 2012 around 15:31 |
| # ? May 11, 2012 15:18 |
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 Horses have the following abilities: see the invisible Last time, we looked at Boschalas- impractical, inefficient, gigantic magical batteries that look like this-  This time? Burrowers. As we've seen, something bad occasionally falls out of another dimension. One of those things is eel-like, festooned with tentacles, and wants to eat your brain. They'll slither up to someone who's sleeping, grab their head with it's tentacles, and then burn a hole in it with acid. Once that's done, they crawl inside and start chowing down on sweet, sweet brain. After about an hour so, the horirble little thing will have eaten half of the victim's brain- at that point, it can start using them like a puppet, temporarily absorbing their ability to do stuff like drive and getting snatches of memory. Since having half of your brain eaten is incurable, they're not much use unless you want kind-of-zombies menacing players and being all-round creepy, with their fragments of memory and almost-being-human schtick. Naturally, that isn't suggested, with the space devoted to a statblock devoted to a six-inch eel-thing instead. On a similar theme is the Dybbuk, or Demon Ghoul. Summoned by an idiot sorceror who they promptly ate, Dybbuk have spread around the world to be assholes to all and sundry, delighting in torturing humans. They're colossal dicks, and can't stand each other- the best you'll see from them socially is hanging around with an arcanist who's too dumb to know better. He's probably got a Boschala farm somewhere. Anyway, they used to hang out in slums and graveyards, but they've started moving into abandoned buildings now, lurking in ruined and run-down inner-city areas. Dybbuk love eating dead, rancid meat, but they also find humans super-tasty.  Hey buddy, got any rotting meat? They're huge (6-8' tall, 400-700lb) four-armed things- one set of arms is heavily muscled with big hands and claws for digging up graves and making an underground lair, the other set are tiny T-rex arms for slicing up and eating what they find. For bonus funtimes, they can inhabit the recently dead, provided the body isn't too badly messed up- the dybbuk just kind of slips on in there, seamlessly. They can stay in there indefinitely, provided they can feed on human blood every day. Stat-wise, they've got horror factor 14, PS 5d6, PP 4d6, and six attacks per melee that do 2d6+PS bonus in damage; they will gently caress you up if you try and throw down with the horrible bastards. Onwards, to the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle is what's called a power triad, and there are a bunch of them- the South American, African, South Pacific, Japanese and Mediterranean Triangles. The locations are helpfully illustrated on a map 20 pages later, if you're wondering (I'll give you a clue- they're near South America, Africa, South Pacific, Japan and the Mediterranean). They're formed by ley lines, of course, connecting to form a triangle of mystery (and death), with a hole in space and time in the middle. Periodically, the hole opens up into a doorway to other dimensions, staying open for anything from hours to days. When this happens, the sea and air get churned up by vicious storms, but there's always areas of lower turbulence... that lead to the rift. The storm is scary and disorienting, but not that bad (it's the usual instruments go wild/weird glows/strange skies stuff). What is bad is the assortment of extradimensional things that are lured to the vortex from the other side, drawn by tasty psychic energy. There is a table. What's on it? Well, the usual X-Files time distortion stuff, poltergeists and spooky stuff, and flying saucers, a giant, hungry octopus (or squid) attack, a greater entity makes itself a body out of whatever materials are handy and tries to kill everyone ('It will be in a foul mood'), find there's now a Creature in the Hold (it's not happy about this turn of events), oh, or you might be warped through space a few hundred miles or encounter a ghost ship which sets you on fire. If you don't want to be set on fire by ghosts, beaten up by ghosts, anal probed by alien ghosts, or attacked by killer calamari, don't go into a magic ley line triangle when the weather's bad, basically. Anyway. Grinding on with some magic- Level Four Invocations Astral Projection lets you sneak around in another dimension, where you can be beaten up by ghosts. Also, you can lose your body which is just careless. Roll to find it when you want to return, succeed on 77+. No, your level and competence don't matter. Blind lets you blind someone. Duh. -5 to strike, -10 to parry and dodge. Charismatic Auramakes yousuper-trustworthy, kind-of-terrifying or a master liar who convinces people 80% of the time. Also, prettier with +8PB. Cure Minor Disorders lets you cure headaches and indigestion. Totally worth going to magic school. Energy Field lets you create 8ft magic forcefields that have 60SDC. Fire Bolt shoots bolts of fire, and is strictly better than Energy Bolt. Multiple Image makes 3 identical copies of the caster that mimic his movements. Repel Animals repels animals. What more do you want? Seal Shadow Meld lets you hide in shadows. Well, better than normal, anyway. Swim as a Fish gives you Swimming and Swimming Advanced at 96%. Should be Swim or Maintain SCUBA Gear as a Fish, then. Trance puts people in trance for 5 mins/level, and they'll follow simple instructions. Next Time! ForkBanger fucked around with this message at May 11, 2012 around 15:27 |
| # ? May 11, 2012 15:25 |
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Mile'ionaha posted:Even if you do something awesome in Pendragon, eventually your character will die. Does that count as 'losing'? No. What does count as losing is despite your actions the Mistaken will prevail and drive the People into extinction. You cannot stop this. Thus like Purple said, for us it seems like a campfire of glory rather than a blaze if you sacrifice yourself. Mile'ionaha posted:If I know how Hamlet ends, does this mean I should never watch the play? Apples = Oranges here. You are not playing an interactive game in which you make decisions, you are a passive observer enjoying a performance. Not trying to attack you here, but this example is kinda flawed. Mile'ionaha posted:It is, in fact, possible to win great victories in Polaris, but you also realize that, like in many heroic myths, you'll need to make a choice at the end of your arc. It's like the choice for a D&D character to either die of old age or to pervert the natural order and become a Lich, throwing away everything for immortality. You will probably die yeah, but before doing so you'll have saved the town/kingdom/multiverse for invasion/magical calamity/apocalypse etc. Gilgamesh, Heracles, etc all died but not before completing epic endeavors that inflicted lasting change.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 15:30 |
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The Aberrant posted:
Your missing the point. The Epic of Gilgamesh is about dealing with mortality, not about 'saving the world' (what does that even mean in real terms?). And even if you save the universe, it'll eventually end. Read Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death. We all have our ways of denying our mortality, though I will admit this is a new one. It's only in superhero comics do things go on forever. And even there you have Crisis on Infinite Earths, Alan Moore's Whatever Happened To the Man of Tomorrow, Dark Knight Returns, etc.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 15:37 |
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because the art is awesome and I should post more of it Polaris Part 3: Character Creation Character creation is a very simple process, as is natural for a game that is more interested in the journey than its beginning. First, we name our character. Since all of the People are named after stars, I will name my character after a star in my favorite constellation. Everyone, meet Second, we write out the Values. Ice(1), Light(1), Zeal(4), and Weariness(-) Third, we write out some Themes. Every protagonist starts with a package of Themes. Office: Knight of the Order of the Stars Blessing: Starlight Sword Abilities: Lore of Demons Fate: A demon or person that all protagonists will agree to have in common. Acrux and his fellow players choose a corrupt senator who is the core of a dark secret society, one that the characters are all just beginning to get rumors of. Fourth, we choose Aspects for our themes. Just like FATE’s Aspects, each Theme has a Pro and Con. A sword will help you in battle, but will make you be perceived as a clueless warmonger on the senate floor, or accidentally hurt a friend, or your antagonist might be immune to blades, for instance. You can also use the default Aspects from the end of the book. ”Example from the Book” posted:Lore of Demons Fifth, fill out your supporting cast in the Cosmos. You should have at least one person or demon in your Full Moon, Mistaken, and New Moon areas. Two or three per area are sufficient. Acrux chooses a Drill Sergeant, Engine of Wicked Gears( a Demon of War), and his still-innocent kid sister. Sixth, the people who will be your Full Moon, Mistaken, and New Moon can look at your supporting characters, brainstorm about ideas for how they could interact, and add up to one character to their designated area. Acrux’s buddies add a Quartermaster, a demon that exists as a viral contagion, and a favored aunt to his sheet. Finally, when you are finished with character creation, you utter the Key Phrase that denotes it. pre:But hope was not yet lost, for Acrux still heard the song of the stars.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 15:40 |
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Count Chocula posted:My copy of Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time has the blurb 'The last story in the annals of the human race'. Don't you want to play that? I don't, because it sounds depressing as Hell. I can understand why someone would, though, since having the opportunity to carve the final word in human history, or spit in the eye of annihilation sounds like a Hell of a thing. I like the ideas in Polaris, but structuring it so that the other players basically take over what would normally be a GM's roles is a problem for me for the same reasons why I didn't like the Shadow play from Wraith. Besides that, if one of the players isn't a terribly good storyteller then things might get a little lopsided. It definitely sounds like taking a session to do chargen and brainstorm relationships and Antagonists would be a good idea. As for it being a communal storytelling experience... well, sure, yeah. But so's the Once Upon a Time deck I've got, or Shock: Social Science Fiction, and they're definitely games too. Polaris just seems more like checkers, with all of the pieces visible and available, than the yahtzee-random approach more traditional RPGs take.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 15:41 |
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To many a game that limits its own scope this much by way of both narrative and game mechanics is not going to be fun to play with more than once at most, I can definitely understand that. Do you really want to pick up and learn a whole new book when you could just as well adapt the bits you like to a more fleshed out and open RPG? What seals the deal for me with most Storygames is that I'd rather do them with FATE, because we already know that system and otherwise I will have to spend hours teaching my group rules we will probably use just a few times, even if I have to sacrifice some streamlining or a few unique tailored mechanics. This is entirely personal preference, but I would not be surprised if it boiled down to this kind of practical thinking for many others. Polaris and others of its kind have many merits which I appreciate, but they lack flexibility and many people want games that suit their style, not to suit themselves to the game. TK-31 fucked around with this message at May 11, 2012 around 16:20 |
| # ? May 11, 2012 16:17 |
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The Aberrant posted:No. What does count as losing is despite your actions the Mistaken will prevail and drive the People into extinction. You cannot stop this. Thus like Purple said, for us it seems like a campfire of glory rather than a blaze if you sacrifice yourself. Some heroes were victorious and some cultures valued material success more than others (notably the Greeks, whose heroes tend to be cast as amoral scumbags by even the values of the time, who get celebrated because they were extremely personally powerful). The converse was true in lots of great legends, you've got Arthur and the einherjar and Finn mac Cumhal (really all the Irish heroes) renowned as great men fighting what the audience (and generally the heroes themselves, through incontrovertible prophecy) knew to be an ultimately futile battle, they were great because they had no hope of lasting success but stood for everything worth standing for anyway. That's why they were remembered as greater-than-human icons even in the degraded modern age of like 1400s England, while those who got going when the going got tough and chose to die old and comfortable have been forgotten. The lives of the saints often come down to the same - it's quite rare for the martyr's sacrifice to actually bring down the wicked pagan king, or lead to everyone being converted; mostly they just die horribly because they will not compromise what they believe in for their own wellbeing, because everything else is beside the point. The game's dispensed with the will-he-won't-he open-ended waffling about temporal victory in this world because it's a distraction irrelevant to the values system it's trying to evoke, where what matters is whether or not you stood for what you believe in to the bitter end. The setting might be a sweeping magical kingdom with demons and swords and poo poo but the conflict is a personal one, and the point is to bring you into that kind of framework where success and comfort aren't the things that matter most (unless they are, in which case you're the kinda guy who fails the test and becomes a monster). If you just want a sandbox to run around and break stuff and stab badness until it stops existing forever while everyone tells you how cool your character is there's like ten thousand RPGs already catering to that, having a handful that don't feed into that specific conception of glory isn't really stepping on your toes here and it seems kinda arbitrary to base something's validity as a game on whether or not there's a "and then they all lived happily ever after" escape clause in the last five minutes. I'm not big on the art-school feel of Polaris with the phrases and stuff but really there should be more games that try to model different kinds of conflicts and ideals, if nothing else it leads to more interesting mechanics than roll-for-damage. Tubgirl Cosplay fucked around with this message at May 11, 2012 around 18:09 |
| # ? May 11, 2012 17:46 |
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Polaris part 4: Key Phrases and Gameplay Now it is time to get to the nuts and bolts of gameplay. Polaris is fascinating, in part, because it relies on a set of key phrases to interact with your fellow players. I mentioned them above, but now I’m actually going to explain them. Key Phrases exist to further the themes of the game, and to focus the mindset of the players. They could easily be pretentious, but they do serve a purpose. Each formal interaction at the table, each invocation of a Key Phrase requires a certain response and reinforces the structure and mood of the game. If D&D is wild swing dancing, this is Noh. This also means that scenes will grow along certain lines. A scene could be a very simple open-and-shut bargain, or it could be an elaborate series of exchanges that go between the protagonist, the Mistaken, the supporting cast, and back again. Almost every scene, however, takes the form of some kind of narrative bargain. Structure of Play When you and your fellow players are done with tabletalk, done catching up on the events of the last week, and ready to begin play, you begin with the Key Phrase pre:Long ago, the people were dying at the end of the world. If you want to start a scene, and have not done so before, you introduce your character by saying pre:But hope was not yet lost, for Acrux still heard this song of the stars pre:And so it was One thing that makes Polaris interesting is that a style of description that would be called ‘godmoding’ in most RP situations is actually encouraged. “I swing my sword at him” is good in D&D, bad in Polaris. “I swing my sword at him, killing him instantly” is bad in D&D, good in Polaris. This works out just fine because the Mistaken can respond with “Yeah, but I get this in exchange.” Any time the Mistaken wants something you disagree with (or vice versa), the scene goes into Conflict mode. This is the meat and potatoes of Polaris gameplay. The Key Conflict Phrases are (again):
Let’s have a sample conflict.  And So It Was that Acrux, was defending his Bastion from the demons. Powered by his zeal, he cut them down left, right, and center. But Only If (start of a conflict) your innocent kid sister is caught up in the fighting. Your sister cries for help! (says the New Moon) But Only If Acrux is able to slay his hated enemy, Engine of Wicked Gears. And Furthermore, his sword passes through the demon, into the heart of your sister. You Ask Too Much! (Exhausts his Starlight Sword to force a different outcome) Hmm, ok, then your sister becomes enraptured by the bloodshed, shattering her innocence forevermore. That seems like a fair revision. Go for it. It Shall Not Come To Pass!(Rolls dice, fails the roll) Even as Engine of Wicked Gears is slain, his corruption enters your sister forever. Any time you fail a roll or refuse to fight with all your might against the demons, you roll Experience. Roll at or under your Zeal or Weariness. If you roll equal or under, increase your Ice or Light by 1, and lower your Zeal (or increase your Weariness) by 1. That’s the game. It’s important to realize that the sky’s the limit. You can say things like “And So It Was that Acrux built a golden citadel to stand against the Mistake for all time.” You just need to realize that the Mistaken will ask for something equally weighty in return. What about the Moons? Generally, the moons are judges and spectators. They add color commentary and people to roleplay with. They can participate in a conflict with Key Phrases, but only if the Heart and the Mistaken allows it. So, let’s replay the scene above The kid sister grabs a fallen sword and impales the demon! But It Was No Matter (denies the Moon’s ability to alter the scene, if and only if the Mistaken also says the Phrase. Instead, the Mistaken could say…) We Shall See What Comes of It. (If the Heart or Mistaken says this, then they adopt the Moon’s suggestion as if it was their own statement. Conflict (or free play) proceeds from there.Likewise, if you want to use someone else’s protagonist in a conflict, you need that player’s permission. No Key Phrase applies, though. The End of the Game If, at any time, your character’s Weariness is greater than zero, you can call for their death. And So It Was that Acrux built a golden citadel to stand against the Mistake for all time. But Only If Acrux, exposed to the corrupting influence, becomes a horrible dictator, grinding out the beauty of the People But Only If… I die. Before he can truly corrupt what he has made, my character is slain. The circumstances of his death are hidden, and he becomes a martyr for the People, inspiring them to reclaim their greatness. Whoa. Alright. And That Was How it Happened.If, at any time, you make an Experience roll that would raise your Weariness above 4, you instead fall. You become a Demon, all of your skills and powers now turned against those you once sought to defend. However your Heart’s story ends, it is an appropriate time to recount their experiences, their life, and the impact of that story. You may then create a new character, or not. Rest of the Book The book finishes up with alternate rules for playing with 3 or 5 people, if you must. It also lists a ton of sample Themes your character can acquire in play. Lastly, it finishes with ten pages of star names. Not all of them are technically stars, but you could play X-1, being named after a black hole. And That Was How It Happened Once play is done, once everyone has told the stories they want to tell, the session is over. Blow out your candle and say the final Key Phrase. pre:But that all happened long ago, and now there are none who remember it.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 17:49 |
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I like the idea of Polaris, but I would never want to play it. e: To clarify, the tit-for-tat codified statements being moves of, essentially, improv storytelling is simultaneously too binding and too free. It's just a game that isn't for me; with my groups, while we do get a lot of storytelling and character development done, we also joke around and posit hypotheticals a lot. Polaris is structured like a debate, which I don't think my group would really jive with.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 18:38 |
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Feng Shui: Consumer! Cease your unauthorized selftransportation! We begin by meeting Chang, a Guiding Hand operative being sent to 2056. The place is confusing and disorienting to them, and he accidentally knocks out the contact lens that was meant to keep him from being detected by the cops. Then we jump to Shiny, a guy with a suped-up scooter who's trying to outrace the Public Order troopers. They start shooting at him - but he's far too fast for them. Which is when he runs face-first into a train. Then we've got Jef, who recently got arrested by the PubOrd cops. They think he's a rebel - and he is, a member of the Free Sex Militia. He wants to hold out, but they're willing to use torture. We begin with a helpful Buro pamphlet designed to acquaint Innerwalkers to 2056, as part of Buro's attempt to turn them and get them to find useful consumer jobs. Buro has pamphlets for basically everything. They present Buro as a utopia - producing factory-made food that, "unlike 'organic' food...is always balanced and healthful." The pamphlet is longwinded but boils down to this: housing is nominally universal, money takes the form of the Hour, with one Hour being the average hourly rate of pay. (Half an Hour per hour of work is the minimum wage, and 20 Hours per hour is the max.) Travel is largely via train or pedestrian slidewalk. But what's the truth, not the propaganda? The food sucks. It's either bland, too salty or too sweet. Organic food is rare and very expensive unless bought on the black market...but quality varies widely there. Shelter takes the form of a tiny dormroom with foldout bed, toilet, desk and kitchen. Fridges cost extra, but at least vat food doesn't spoil easily. Your average work day is six hours long, so about 120 Hours per month. Forty of which pay your rent. Vat food is cheap, at least, and so are generic, unadorned clothes made of extruded polymers. Travel is free on the slidewalks, but commutes can be harsh. However, cost of living goes up from here. All TV is pay-per-view except for ads. Sure, it's fractions of an Hour, but that adds up. Between rent, work and TV, almost all your time is either earning or spending money, and no one ever feels like they have enough. The only way to make a lot of money is to work for Buro. Only Buro has enough to, for example, own a home. Of the 169 professions that pay maximum wage, 48 are military, 62 are Buro, 30 are Public Order and 26 are CDCA. The other three are in entertainment. Of course, you can make money illegally - black marketeering, gambling and eyeball farming are lucrative - but they're mostly done via barter, since Buro watches the banks. So, how do you actually travel? Well, the trains do exist, with nice seats, average food and good decor, but almost no one can afford them. Most people uses cramped, noisy, crowded subways, where you get packed in like sardines. Long-distance travel is worse. A coach-class 'seat' on a Gravity Rammer is a stiff, upright mattress. You stand in front of the mattress facing forward and get rammed into them by the massive acceleration, which may or may not end depending on the length of the trip. The force is so great that most people can't pry themselves free. Since firearms are illegal, a common method of suicide is to put a brick on the mattress and face it from a foot away when the train starts. They hit the brick, go unconscious and suffocate on the mattress. Thus, suicide is known as 'facing the mattress.' Those who somehow end up in the aisle when the train leaves the station get pulled through the length of the car and hit the wall. This is painful and sometimes fatal. The cops escorting prisoners will sometimes pick up prisoners, lift them above the floor and drop them while on a Gravity Rammer. This is known as 'having a train accident.' Buropresident Bonenegle set up three groups in 2053 to "ensure happiness and well-being," though most people from the 20th century would see them as draconian tyranny. Team Love, the Sub-Bureau For Progressive Human Homogenization, tries to ensure 'Freedom from hatred,' by "encouraging" (read: mandating) ethnic intermarriage in order to create a single, homogenous human race and thus avoid ethnic conflict. Team Peace, the Sub-Bureau for Attitudinal Disarmament, seeks 'freedom from violence,' illegalizing all forms of martial arts in order to ensure that, like guns (which were illegallized before this) they can't be used to kill people. Team Joy, the Sub-Bureau For Constructive Personal Perspective, seeks 'freedom from misery,' by ending "negative personal viewpoints," as unhappiness can, apparently, be traced to cynicism, moping, teasing and pessimism. This decreases production efficiency, undermines faith in the government and encourages Jammer sympathies. Thus, Team Joy is dedicated to "improving attitudes" (read: punishing complaining and apparent unhappiness). Fun times! And now we get character types, because...I don't know, because.  The Buro was bad enough when there were actual rebels, but now they're trying to punish what you think, not just what you do. Team Love, Team Peace and Team Joy have gained massive power, and they're oppressing your rights. They tax non-homogenizing marriages and rumor has it they'll be banned soon. Even non-marital same-race relationships must be registered; failure is a misdemeanor. Martial arts are being forced underground - even purely sporting ones, like Judo. You can be fined for making negative comments. Someone has to fight back, and that's you. You are a Free Sex Militant, and your cause is simple: you don't want government interference in marriage. You are willing to fight over this. Free Sex Militants are from 2056. They have Bod 5, Chi 0, Mnd 5, Ref 5. They get 6 points to spread between primary attributes, none of which can have more than 5 added to them. They get Guns +9, which can't be raised, Martial Arts +6, which can't be raised, Deceit +6, Intrusion +5, to a max of +10, Leaders +4, to a max of +7 and Seduction +2, to a max of +8. They get +4 to spread around and can swap Martial Arts and Guns if they want. They get 4 Gun schticks and two unique schticks, which we'll get to in a moment. They get one weapon...and they have a unique problem: they're trying to swim against the flow of Buro's chi, and that's loving hard. They constantly feel guilty when in 2056, take -2 to all rolls when opposing abominations or uniformed Buro agents. (Except for rolls to hide. Hiding is fine.) Free Sex Militants are Working Stiffs. As a note - you don't have to be a Free Sex Militant. You could be a Luddite, one of those who object to Buro's omnipresent spying and fight in the name of privacy, or a Blackwater Fury, an incoherent and ultraviolent splinter of the Free Sex Militia that even the Jammers think are crazy. Or you could be a Fist of Freedom, from the martial arts underground. Or a Grump, a militant group demanding the right to feel as bad as they want. They hold public tragedies to give people an excuse to be unhappy. If you're not a Free Sex Militant, you lose Seduction. Luddites and Blackwater Fury get Sabotage +2, to a max of +8. Fists of Freedom lose their Guns score and increase Martial Arts to +10, which can't be raised. They lose their gun schticks, but get +3 Fu and 2 Fu schticks. Grumps get Fix-It +2, to a max of +8. All militants get two schticks: Inspiration, which lets them give an inspiring speech before combat when temaed up with unnamed NPCs. (It must be before combat starts.) They then roll Leadership, diff 11. If they succeed, all unnamed charachters who heard the speech get +1 to the higher of their Guns or Martial Arts for the duration of the fight. They also get Recruiting, to persuade NPCs to join the cause. This takes an hour of discussion without significant interruption (such as fighting). You roll Leadership (or Seduction, if you're a Free Sex Militant) against the target's Willpower or highest action value, whichever is greater. Modifiers can be thrown on if they'd be relevant (it's harder to, say, turn a Lotus sorcerer who knows he'll be fed to The Thing That Eats Your Kidneys Forever), or just veto some recruitments. Alternatively, once per session you can try to "pick up a stranger," rolling Leadership, diff 11. On a success, you get a named NPC who will work for your group. It will have either Guns or Martial Arts at 8, or both at 7. It also gets one non-combat skill at 8 or an Info skill at 9. The GM controls the character, but you decide their name, backstory and personality. These guys can stick around as long as needed, and can even be great sidekicks! If you fail the roll, the GM decides if you get no recruit or an inferior recruit. A fumble may mean someone you already recruited turns out to be a spy.  You're a Drifter. You're a mystery and you never settle down. You leave a place whenever you feel the need to get the dust off your feet. Maybe you're running from a bad romance, maybe you killed a cop way back when. No one but you knows for sure, and you sure ain't telling. The thing about you, though: you always show up when you're needed, right in the nick of time. When you're done, you get your horse or start hitch-hiking or jump on a train - but you'll be back. You'll be back right when they need you again. Drifters can be from any Juncture. They get Bod 5, Chi 0, For 2, Mnd 5, Ref 5. They add 3 to one primary attribute, 2 to another and 2 to one secondary attribute. They get Martial Arts +5, Fix-It +2, Gambling +4, Intimidaiton +3, Intrusion +1, Seduction +3. They get +8 to spread around, but may not have any skill total above 14. They may swap Martial Arts for Guns if from any juncture but 2056. They get one unique schtick: Nick of Time. Any time another character needs help, you can show up if it is at all plausible that you might be able to - so, you're not in jail and you're in the same juncture, and no other reasons you can't possibly show up. Every player may offer an explanation for how you happened to be there just at the right time. You get to pick the one you like best. Drifters are Poor.  You're a Consumer on the Brink. You stay quiet, trying to hold it all in. Maybe you work long hours and hope exhaustion calms you. Maybe you box to work out your rage. Maybe you spend lots of time on violent VR sims. None of it works. Your boss sucks, your head hurts, your ex-wife is paying someone to harass you, the bank won't admit they lost your money, the food you just got tastes bad, your stomach hurts, your coworkers are lying about you to get you fired. You try, you really do. You want to stay cool, and for a long time, you've managed it. Maybe a bit too long. The next guy who bugs is going to get it good. Consumers on the Brink can be from 1990s or 2056. They get Bod 5, Chi 0, Mnd 5, Ref 5. They have 5 points to divide between primary attributes, but can't spend more than 3 on any one. They get Guns +1, to a max of +5, Martial Arts +2, to a max of +6, Info: Meditation and Relaxation Techniques +3, Intimidation +3. They have +6 to spread around, but no skill total can go above 15. They get three unique schticks. First, Irritant: Pick one thing that really, really bugs you. Buro cops, sassy young people, the rich, puns, warm beer, bigotry, loud noises, whatever. When trying to destroy or remove that thing, you never suffer Impairment from injury. Second, Adrenaline: When in the presence of your irritant or when attacked, you get +4 to divide up between Bod and Ref. You may redistribute these points at the start of each sequence, but remember to recalculate your action values when you do. You keep this bonus until the annoyance goes away. Last, Mean Streak: Any time you hit with a hand-to-hand wepaon, you deal 1 bonus Damage, after all other damage is digured out - so even if your target soaked all your damage with Toughness, you still deal 1 wound point from sheer rage. They get one weapon. Consumers on the Brink are Working Stiffs.  You're a real bad guy, a Criminal Mastermind. You've done it all. You've smuggled booze and tobacco, run eyeball farms and illegal poker games, stolen weapons and sold 'em to Jammers. You've hidden censored history books and helped escaped prisoners get their court-ordered brain surgery fixed. You've even hidden children when Buro was trying to find them to smoke out their parents. Maybe when abominations were sent to pacify your town, you even helped people hide from the death squads. Oh yeah. You're a bad guy. Buro swears up and down. You love it - it's fun! You're not cruel - all the real sadists and psychos joined Public Order. You just hate the Buro, the System and the laws. It's more than just an excuse to dress in black, sneer at people and call your employees minions. You swear it is. Really. Criminal Masterminds are from 2056 only. They get Bod 5, Chi 0, Fu 4, Mnd 5, Ref 5. They have 4 points to spread around primary attributes, but can't spend more than 2 on any one. They get Martial Arts +9, which can't be raised, Guns +5, which can't be raised, Info: 2056 Criminal Underground +5, Leadership +5, Intrusion +2, Intimidation +3. They get +2 to spread around and may swap Guns and Martial Arts if desired. They get either 4 Gun schticks, 2 Fu schticks or 2 Gun schticks and 1 Fu schtick. They also get a uniquye schtick: Mook Magnet. As long as they are in an urban setting, have some kind of incentive (money, booze, whatever) and spend a full day cruising dive bars, stockyards and other places where mooks gather, they can make an open roll, adding 1 to the result. That's how many mooks they get. The mooks will serve for 2-3 days without a reward before leaving. If given what they were promised, they stick around until they stop getting paid or they die. Any mooks who survive 3 combats under you become "battle hardened," turning into named characters. You pick the names. They can now gian XP if allowed to attune to feng shui sites (but through no other means), and they don't die as easily. Sadly, Criminal Masterminds suffer from a limitation: Slave to the Cheese. If they capture or nonleathally defeat any named cop or Buro character, they are complete;y incapable of simply killing them and must do everything in their power to prevent anyone else from doing it. Killing them out of hand is too easy, too quick. They have to toy with their foes using elaborate deathtrops or desperate but psychotically fair gambles to win their freedom. Further, they can't resist gloating and must tell all prisoners about their plans. They get 3 weapons and are Rich. Next time: Living with Buro. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at May 11, 2012 around 19:10 |
| # ? May 11, 2012 18:44 |
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Mors Rattus posted:Sadly, Criminal Masterminds suffer from a limitation: Slave to the Cheese. If they capture or nonleathally defeat any named cop or Buro character, they are complete;y incapable of simply killing them and must do everything in their power to prevent anyone else from doing it. Killing them out of hand is too easy, too quick. They have to toy with their foes using elaborate deathtrops or desperate but psychotically fair gambles to win their freedom. Further, they can't resist gloating and must tell all prisoners about their plans. They 3 weapons and are Rich. How could anyone possibly call this a limitation?
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| # ? May 11, 2012 19:05 |
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You know for some reason I've never really made an effort to watch any Hong Kong action type movies but feng shui is really making me want to, I know its of topic but does anyone have any suggestions on where to start?
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| # ? May 11, 2012 19:38 |
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I've been skipping the parts of the books where they give that advice. Main book: John Woo's The Killer, A Better Tomorrow, Bullet in the Head (for grim and dark), Once A Thief (fun and lighthearted) and Hardboiled. Jackie Chan in Mr. Canton and Lady Rose (AKA Miracles: The Chinese Godfather), the Police Story series, Armor of God and Armor of God 2: Operation Condor, Rumble in the Bronx or Drunken Master and Drunken Master 2. Tsui Hark has the Chinese Ghost Story series, Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain, and the Once Upon a Time in China series. Also Dragon Inn, Burning Paradise and, for non-kung fu, Peking Opera Blues and The Raid or The Wicked City. Jet Li in Kung Fu Cult Master, the aforementioned Once Upon a Time in China stuff, Bodyguard From Beijing and Fist of Legend. Generic: Ashes of Time for swordplay, City On Fire, Full Contact or To Be Number One for gangland, Bury Me High, Time Warriors, The Seventh Curse or The Legend of Wisely for adventure, and Savior of the Soul, The Heroic Trio or its sequel The Executioners for more futuristic stuff. Jammers: Fight Club, Terminator series, Mad Max series, Demolition Man and the Matrix. (No, these aren't Hong Kong, just major Jammer-like movies.) Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at May 11, 2012 around 19:52 |
| # ? May 11, 2012 19:48 |
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For more recent movies, Ip Man and Ip Man 2 are pretty great, and semi-fictionalized accounts of events in the life of the guy who taught Bruce Lee how to kick rear end. I've seen ~half of the recommended Hong Kong film list there and they're all really good, Once Upon A Time In China particularly - there's a reason it's recommended in two books.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 19:59 |
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After watching "once Upon a Time in China", make sure to look up "Deadly China Hero". It is Jet Li padodying his own movies.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 20:03 |
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doomfunk posted:For more recent movies, Ip Man and Ip Man 2 are pretty great, and semi-fictionalized accounts of events in the life of the guy who taught Bruce Lee how to kick rear end.. two notes on martial arts cinema, 1. You want this version of Drunken Master 2 http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/T...7?trkid=2361637 And you really do need to see Jackie Chan do drunken boxing. 2. The new hotness in martial arts cinema is south of Hong Kong. Thai and Malaysian films are getting attention nowadays. The Raid is a phenomenal action movie out of Malaysia. Thailand has Ong Bak and Chocolate (same director, different stars). Chocolate is the story of an autistic girl who goes around collecting her mother's old gangland debts to help her pay for chemotherapy. That's right, the most hackneyed plot ever. Then she beats up everybody. Good movie. It's on streaming, go for it. http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/C...2?trkid=2361637
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| # ? May 11, 2012 20:27 |
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I was sticking to Hong Kong, but if we're opening it up, Merantau is also really good, and there is a massive pile of South Korean cinema that often gets overlooked in favour of Japanese movies.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 20:29 |
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I'd say that Versus sounds extremely Feng Shui, it even involves fighting over a Feng Shui site of sorts.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 20:30 |
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It's got Jammers, too. 
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| # ? May 11, 2012 20:35 |
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mllaneza posted:two notes on martial arts Born to Fight is also spectacular: peaceful rural village is taken over by drug-dealing terrorists, and with the aid of a loose cannon cop out for revenge must take them down using gymnastics, muay thai, and patriotism. Bangkok gets blown up (sort of), trucks and motorcycles are driven through buildings (which also blow up), and there's like ten dramatic slow-mo sequences where someone gets wounded and their buddies go apeshit. Robot time apes would not be terribly out of place. Really you watch that, The Killer/Hard Boiled, any given wuxia film you've pretty much got all the bases covered. E: Oh, and Big Trouble in Little China, ofc Tubgirl Cosplay fucked around with this message at May 11, 2012 around 20:46 |
| # ? May 11, 2012 20:38 |
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If anyone but Greg Stolze wrote it I'd be pretty creeped out by a book that's Evil Dystopia includes interracial marriage, public transport and gun control. But since it's Stolze I'll just focus on the classes for Falling Down and Danger: Diaboloque. For the old China junction watch some Shaw Brothers films. 36 Chambers of Shaolin is a good one. doomfunk posted:I like the idea of Polaris, but I would never want to play it. I really like the codified phrases, since they fit the exact aesthetic I look for. You can adapt them to other settings: "A long time ago in a galaxy far away." "The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed." "The world has moved on." "Reverse Hollowing". The Golden Citadel example is the sort of thing I read fantasy for. Maybe I should put my money where my mouth is and run this. The Dark Tower series before the fall of Mid-World might be good. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at May 11, 2012 around 21:12 |
| # ? May 11, 2012 20:52 |
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| # ? Jun 20, 2013 05:24 |
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I think my exhaustion at the notion of doing something like that for entertainment's sake relies entirely on my experiences coaching a debate team. The repetitive nature of framing the story as it develops with such familiar phrasing, regardless of the frame it constructs, would bother me completely.
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| # ? May 11, 2012 21:02 |
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