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Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

You pick up the nugget of URANIUM and...

Oh that was so stupid. Why would you do that?


Lemon Curdistan posted:

manstorm
That's halfway to a Synnibar NPC name.

Jake Manstorm!

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Zereth
Jul 8, 2003

Would you think I was playing if I did...
THIS!


MagicHateBall posted:

I have a copy of this laying around and will take the review duty off your hands when I get back to my library, if you like. I wouldn't mind doing it, I actually sort of like SenZar.

Sup SenZar-owning-buddy. Sure, go ahead, I'll handle the supplement I have in between EVERYTHING ELSE I HAVE TO DO OH GOD

EDIT:

Lemon Curdistan posted:

Also: the were- in werewolf etc. means "man." A werestorm is a manstorm.
I'm aware of that, but in pop culture it generally means "like a werewolf". It doesn't mean either of those things in Synnibarr: One of the classes is "Wereman". I'll be getting to this in the glossary post.

Drox
Aug 9, 2007

by Y Kant Ozma Post


Zereth posted:

Sup SenZar-owning-buddy. Sure, go ahead, I'll handle the supplement I have in between EVERYTHING ELSE I HAVE TO DO OH GOD

EDIT:

I'm aware of that, but in pop culture it generally means "like a werewolf". It doesn't mean either of those things in Synnibarr: One of the classes is "Wereman". I'll be getting to this in the glossary post.

Clearly this is a Man-man. The class gets its powers from focusing machismo.

Piell
Sep 3, 2006

(Dungeon) Master of Cruel Dice Rolls: when I recruit, people will die.

Drox posted:

Clearly this is a Man-man. The class gets its powers from focusing machismo.

Bitten by a radioactive man, he has the proportional strength and agility of a man as well as Man-Sense! He is Man-man!

Drox
Aug 9, 2007

by Y Kant Ozma Post


Piell posted:

Bitten by a radioactive man, he has the proportional strength and agility of a man as well as Man-Sense! He is Man-man!

I was thinking more like a Cho Aniki MENSBEAM-user type of thing.

Etherwind
Apr 22, 2008
Probation
Can't post for 4070 days!


Wouldn't a Wereman basically be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

Zereth
Jul 8, 2003

Would you think I was playing if I did...
THIS!


Oh no. It's much more stupid.

In fact, I'll get to the glossary RIGHT NOW! Except the glossary does not mention werestorms, werewinds, or weremen.

The World of Synnibarr, Part 2: The Glossary

Immediately after the origin story and a boring timeline comes the glossary, full of all kinds of information, including a few mechanically important things you don't find anywhere else! I won't be going over most of this now because it'll come up later, but some of it is hilarious.

For one thing, one of the first entries is "10ths". Which is damage reduction! See, 1 10th means you divide (usually only physical and energy) damage you take by 10, two by 100, etc. The most you can have inherently is 4, and another 4 from worn armor (which has its own hitpoints and gets damaged and I'll go over that later.)

And initiative is called "Advantage" because why not.

Alchemy is "a force within the Centiverse similar to technology but more akin to magic", and is not in fact about magical chemistry and potions and turning materials into other materials much of the time, but has a lot more energy beams and poo poo, becuase this is Synnibarr.

Aura is your alignment, basically, but might change based on your mood.

Death is defined here (Yyou die at negative 1000 "life points", which may seem like a lot but is nothing in this system), and I can't remember if this turns up again in the combat chapter, so I'm putting it in.

EGs are "electrons in gravimetric suspension", and one of them is equal to 10,000 kilowatt-hours. This is how most portable poo poo is powered in the World of Synnibarr for some reason, although if you take it to a place where 'high technology" doesnt' work for a while it'll break.

The GM is called Fate, and PCs can do something called a "Fate Roll" which is not seemingly related to the GM being Fate, but is instead a roll on percentile dice. It is basically saving throws, only there's a shitload of categories.

"Midnight Sunstone" is one of the hardest substances "that can exist", and is a crystalline metal found near midnight sunstone creatures, and is used to generate "Midnight Sunstone Energy", "Also known as Pure Psionics". Which is a "blue-black beam with a pure white light at its core".

"Organic Electronics" are like electronics, only they use protein molecules instead of integrated circuts, and also use synapses and neurons to sort of think or something. You need to use these instead of conventional electronics if you want to generate magic or poo poo, but you can also do normal electronics stuff at half the power drain and 10% of the size.

The Powers: These are various types of weird-rear end magic, and include Magic, Psionics, Earthpower, Alchemy, Mutations, Chi, with special categories for Venderant Nalaberong, Pure Psionics, and God Power. However, they only work in the presence of Caprenium Radiation, which is caused by the combination of caprium and technentium. But fortunately those are omnipresent! But their effect might be drowned out by other types of raidaiton so powers might not work in some places. This isn't mentioned in the glossary, but "Werewinds" and "Werestorms" are one of the ways of nullifying most Powers.

There's a combat move called "Sacrifice", which is, uh. Attacking a guy first instead of dodging. I don't know why it's called "sacrifice".

And now, king poo poo of gently caress mountain of important mechanical non-duplicated information, Venderant Nalaberong.

Venderant Nalaberong is "the strongerst force in the Centiverse", which cannot be affected by any other type of power, including God Power (which is what gods use, if you couldn't tell from its strange arcane name). Also known as "The Tounge". It's a "Special form of pure magic practiced by only a few", and is the language the elder gods used to make the Centiverse. "This language cannot be spoken or written by anyone unskilled in its use." Remember that, it's going to come up later. You learn it by trying to read an example and making an Ego Roll, which you can't repeat unless you manage to improve your character's intelligence by some means. (Ego is the use of your Intelligence and your Wisdom, but raising your Wisdom doesn't let you make another roll like Int does for some reason.) Once you learn it, you become a spellcaster in Venderant Nalaberong, which means you can cast pre-existing types of spells only with VN backing it up, which means only other VN-backed things can stop them. How do you make ego rolls, you may ask?

YOU DON'T.

That's right. I've read this book cover to cover multiple times and never found any rules for either ego rolls or general stat rolls. Nobody can ever learn Venderant Nalaberong, ever.

Join me next time for a 9-page example of play!

Canopus250
Feb 17, 2005

You guys are taking me along this time? Right? Wait Shaundi is going? This is bullshit man!



Just chiming in to say that I want to hear about the real madness that is Synnibar.

We did FATAL once the other year as a drinking challenge with 8 players and one game master. With 9 people we went through a 30 pack of beer, 3 bottles of wine, and I think 3 grumblers from a local microbrewery. It was horrible beyond belief but if you can find humor in the absurdity it has some I want to kill myself because I found something funny moments. The best areas for this had to be the societies of non-humans and the crime and punishment chapters. So we completely randomly rolled up characters and then had a free for all death match with some horrible highlights:
-A troll child with a bmi of over 100 who killed a human slave by a critical hit to the testicle
-A very large (in all dimensions) ogress who fit the elf up its rear end
-My character Dame Quijote (old schizo female knight) mowing everybody down because I got to start with a suit of armor, shield, sword and a million skill ranks for being in my 50s. The ogress did manage to crit me through my armor and ruined my uterus before I stabbed her in the brain
-A tiny headed bugbear who could just barely fit his own head into his rear end
-The description of how Dark Elves become adult members of their society

It is more horrible than you might believe but the drunken spectacle of it was somewhat enjoyable.

Canopus250 fucked around with this message at Jun 27, 2011 around 18:10

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.


demota posted:

There's a game out there called Tales from the Floating Vagabond that's supposed to be a comedy fantasy RPG that has incredibly detailed and hyper-deadly combat rules. It's not meant to be a black comedy.


Used to play that with my boy scout troop. It's a regular comedy, kinda like a TOON in space. Like, the rules for aliens just encourage you to make something up and apply a few penalties/debuffs to various stats. The combat rules were detailed, but were mostly bad only because the game didn't think through the relations of armor and weapons very well.

Zereth
Jul 8, 2003

Would you think I was playing if I did...
THIS!


Canopus250 posted:

Just chiming in to say that I want to hear about the real madness that is Synnibar.
I'm considering how I want to handle the example of play. Transcribing the entire nine loving pages is not really realistic, and I've got a PDF I found somewhere I forgot but the scan quality isn't good and I don't know how to feed it into some sort of OCR program anyway.

TheTatteredKing
Feb 15, 2011

If we could turn nerd entitlement into energy it would prevent the heat death of the universe.


Canopus250 posted:

-The description of how Dark Elves become adult members of their society

Oh god I can only imagine

Bieeardo
Aug 21, 2000

Someone bold, someone blue, someone borrowed, someone new...


Lemon Curdistan posted:

Also: the were- in werewolf etc. means "man." A werestorm is a manstorm.

It's raining men. Men with midnight sunstone bazookas.

Prokhor Zakharov
Dec 31, 2008
Good luck with your depression!


If people are interested in seeing the bizarre world of Furry Pirates I'd be willing to do a write up.

Please note that the Author's Intro starts with (emphasis theirs):

Jeff Tidball posted:

Are you madmen? A game about anthropomorphic animal pirates?!?

Sadly this question is never really resolved.

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeeey

Lemon Curdistan posted:

I don't know, if done properly and without the impression that it was the greatest thing ever, it could be a fun pulp setting.

Also: the were- in werewolf etc. means "man." A werestorm is a manstorm.

So Jesus made it so it was Raining Men?

Kerbtree
Sep 8, 2008

BAD FALCON!
LAZY!


Perestroika posted:

Wha...How...Why...Why would you ever need a stat such as this? Why would anyone ever create a system where such a stat is neccessary?

One of the more -worthy things I can remember from grognards.txt is that in FATAL, the most combat-effective character is an ogre that, for an attack, buggers his enemies to death.

Mormon Star Wars
Aug 13, 2005
It's a minotaur race...

Is "The Everlasting" obscure?

It's like the World of Darkness, but instead of having a "this is how you GM" section, it's got a "this is how you embrace a personal mythology!" section, complete with how to hypnotize each other and use lucid dreaming to enable the game to lift you out of the drudgery of worrying about your job, family, and friends!

quote:

A Word to "Experienced Gamers"
...Primarily, The Everlasting is more than a game, it is a Legendmaking Experience (or "mythic experience") involving as much personal depth as you give it - serving as a magick mirror reflecting everything you bring to it."

Gau
Nov 18, 2003


Mormon Star Wars, if you don't review that book, you will have failed as a human being and as a goon.

Prokhor Zakharov
Dec 31, 2008
Good luck with your depression!


Gau posted:

Mormon Star Wars, if you don't review that book, you will have failed as a human being and as a goon.

WickedIcon
Jan 3, 2011

by Y Kant Ozma Post


Kerbtree posted:

One of the more -worthy things I can remember from grognards.txt is that in FATAL, the most combat-effective character is an ogre that, for an attack, buggers his enemies to death.

Is this a good time to bring up the randy gay ogres?

Zereth
Jul 8, 2003

Would you think I was playing if I did...
THIS!


Mormon Star Wars posted:

Is "The Everlasting" obscure?

It's like the World of Darkness, but instead of having a "this is how you GM" section, it's got a "this is how you embrace a personal mythology!" section, complete with how to hypnotize each other and use lucid dreaming to enable the game to lift you out of the drudgery of worrying about your job, family, and friends!
If you don't review this I will drive to your house and shoot you.

With a Midnight Sunstone Bazooka.

Young Freud
Nov 25, 2006

My old avatar sucked anyway.

Jesus, me and a bunch of friends got together last Friday, had ribs and drank, and really couldn't come up with anything else, so we started talking about FATAL and Synnibarr, among others (it started off talking about Phoenix Command and the rules inconsistencies with GDW's Twilight 2000, including one I didn't know about in which it made going prone essentially suicide). At one point, we ended up reading the RPGnet review on Synnibarr and McCracken on the big screen.

BTW, it's been awhile but Salon had an article from a guy who worked at WotC talking about the industry. There's a good part in the article, when talking about their hiring practices, where the writer brings up interviewing McCracken for a position at WotC. He knew of McCracken from Synnibarr's reputation. When finishing the interview, McCracken told him that it was either working at WotC or working at McDonalds. Needless to say, it gave the writer a perverse pleasure at turning him down.

Supposedly, McCracken still has dealings with projectile-shooting bears, as he made/try to make an adult talk show that he produced and hosted. He also has written a couple books, although I'm not sure if he published them through a vanity press or not.

Also, I heavily suspect that Regular Show's "Realm of Darthon" comes from the Land of Synnibarr. After reading through the RPGnet review, there's too many similarities between them that it has to be a reference to Synnibarr.

Kitfox88
Aug 20, 2007

Now you fucked up! You have fucked up now!


I'd be willing to dive into Maid if Doc Hawkins or ComissarMega don't want to, actually. It's not too horrifically creepy unless you make it that way, despite the premise

Gau
Nov 18, 2003


I demand that whoever reviews Maid not be a Maid sympathizer themselves.

Rasamune
Jan 19, 2011

MORT
MORT
MORT


And unless someone else is really really itching to do it, I'll tackle the Returners FFRPG.

Daeren
Aug 17, 2009

YER MUSTACHE IS CROOKED


Changing Breeds Part I: The Introduction

Before I begin: the new World of Darkness line is, for the most part, well written and playable, with occasional bits of broken mechanics or asstastic fluff that we make endless fun of in the WoD thread. This book is not representative of the quality of the rest of the books White Wolf makes. This book is pretty much the distillation of absolutely everything wrong with oWoD that caused White Wolf to reboot in the first place, reprinted as an excuse to make loads of money off furries.

Let's just start with the cover.



A were-lion, Gorilla Grodd, and a were-baboon are all atop a pile of junked cars, apparently being led by someone who looks like Thor with antlers glued to his head. It's kinda weird how some hybrid forms in this book are way more human than others, Deerhoof Antlerdude here being the prime example (we'll get to see more of him later.)

We can't get any further without discussing the authors of this shitheap, however. Most of them have only been credited with writing Changing Breeds, as far as I can tell, but the main writer and developer of Changing Breeds is one Phil "Satyrblade" Brucato. Yes, that's how he's credited in the book. Let's see what he's done. To Wikipedia!

Wikipedia posted:

"Satyr" Phil Brucato is an American writer and game designer. He is best known for his work with White Wolf, Inc., including role-playing games such as Mage: The Ascension, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade. He has also created Deliria: Faerie Tales for a New Millennium for Laughing Pan Productions.

Noted for his motto "To write is to tell the Truth,",[1] Phil uses fantasy fiction to inspire his readers toward real-life achievements. Although he's often considered a neopagan author, his work displays an openness and respect for all forms of spirituality.

[Bolded works are 'start running' levels of terrible, I added a few from RPG.net]

Selected Role-playing work with White Wolf, Inc

* World of Darkness: Changing Breeds
* The Swashbucklers Handbook - co-author
* Infernalism: The Path of Screams - author
* Revelations of the Dark Mother - co-author
* Freak Legions: A Player's Guide to Fomori - contributing author
* Vampire: The Masquerade, Revised Edition- (contributing author) by Robert Hatch & Various Authors (1998, White Wolf, Inc.).
* Kindred of the East - (contributing author) ()
* Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade - author & designer
* Bastet - co-author
* Cult of Ecstasy (1996, White Wolf, Inc.).
* Vampire: The Dark Ages - contributing author & designer
* Mage: The Ascension, 2nd Edition - author & designer
* The Fragile Path: Testaments of the First Cabal - editor & contributing author
* Changeling: The Dreaming - contributing author (1st and 2nd editions)
* Players Guide for Changeling: The Dreaming - author and designer
* Black Furies - author and designer


Other Books

* Ravens in the Library - editor & contributing author, with Sandra Buskirk (2009, Quiet Thunder Productions).
* Love Wisdom — A Soul’s Journey to Wellness (editor) by Dr. Shannon South (2009, Trafford Publishing).
* Rites of Pleasure: Sexuality in Wicca and NeoPaganism - contributing author, edited by Jennifer Hunter (2004, Citadel Press).


Oh. Ohhhh. Oh dear.

Moving on. The into piece to the book is the standard White Wolf poorly formatted artsy attempt to make sub-par short stories look good, except this one is so short it could probably fit on a single page with normal editing. It's about a Mexican woman trying to cross the border into America to start over. It starts with these choice words:

quote:

When I came into this country, I crossed the desert on foot.

We moved at night, eating stale tortillas and stealing water from cattle troughs.

The man who guided our crossing called himself “COYOTE,” but the only beast in him was MAN.

She talks about how she'd heard about men like him doing horrible things to people in the desert, and surprise, he tries - scratch that, succeeds at - raping her one night. While being raped, she flashes back to her father killing a gray fox that had been eating their chickens, and how it made her break down sobbing as her father yelled at her for being a sissy. As she remembers her screams, she shifts and rips the rapist guide to tiny pieces, and wakes up soaked in blood and butt naked in the middle of the desert, alone.

We haven't even reached the contents of the book and we already have surprise sex, symbolic surprise sex of nature, natural vengeance, nudity, and murder. Well, I have to give it credit, the intro does tell you exactly what you're in for.

The introduction chapter proper sets the tone by describing Man as a clever monkey despoiling nature, hiding from the beasts in the shadows, etc etc yadda yadda all the stuff that made us cringe back when oWerewolf was out. It also sets the tone where disturbingly almost-sexual language is used constantly when talking about Changing Breeds and animals in general, like "animal sensuality", "passionate," "beautiful," "quick to love," and the like. I know it's intending to talk about stronger emotion and instinct in general, but if they're trying to not sound like they want to gently caress animal-people, they're failing pretty miserably, here.

The book defines what the Changing Breeds are, at this point:

quote:

A member of “the changing breeds” is a person who shares a metaphysical connection to an inner animal. This connection allows that person to shift between human and animal forms. The connection is innate, primal and mysterious. No one knows really why or how it happens, but once opened, that bond cannot be broken except by death.

Yyyyep. We've got ourselves a Therianthrope splatbook. And don't you think they're going to just gloss over the furry fandom, oh no my friends, they're gonna tackle that poo poo head on.

Moving on, we get the first mention of the first "axis" in character creation, Accords. In the new World of Darkness system, each line has two main categories for the supernatural type. Put very simply, it's generally 'race-analogue' and 'class-analogue,' but nowhere near as restrictive as that. The race analogue are the Clans in vampire, the Seemings in Changeling, and so on - the subtype of the supernatural race you belong to. The class analogue is usually a social group or philosophy you follow: Courts in Changeling, Tribes in Werewolf, etc.

The class analogue in this are "Accords", also known as "Songs of the Souls" (not even kidding.) It's "a spiritual harmony composed of longing, awareness, hunger and rage." This is basically the temperament of your character and what they do. The Accords are the Den-Warder (nurturing/protecting), the Heart-Ripper (predatory), the Root-Weaver (builder), the Sun-Chaser (trickster) and the Wind-Dancer (intuitive/thoughtful).

The book goes on to say that there's no real were-creature society, as it's too fractious and widespread. The reason I bring this up is because they use the term 'parliament of werebears' and it made me think of how much better Parliamentary politics would be if arguments could escalate into MPs turning into giant-rear end bears and mauling each other.

Anyway. The second axis, and the one that is way the hell wider, is the Nahual, or spirit animal. Yes, you have a power animal that you can see in your dreams that reflects in your body and demeanor, and determines what shapes you can shift into and what stuff you can do. If you've ever read Werewolf or even seen a movie with werewolves, you have the general idea.

So, what artwork should you use to demonstrate this idea? Maybe a werewolf howling to the moon, perhaps? Or a werecrocodile eating people? Maybe something unusual, like a werespider in a web?

gently caress that. You're getting bird-woman tits. (Semi-, obviously.)

Keep in mind that, aside from the cover and introduction, this is the first piece of art in the book. This is what we're dealing with.

Also, if you look really closely at the hobo's bottle of Not-Jack-Daniels, "Daniels" looks a hell of a lot like "Dalek." I would totally drink Dalek booze.

Also on the same page as Avian Mammaries is a discussion about how mankind are a bunch of jackasses (with a cringe-inducing clarification that women can be just as bad as men) that Nature is starting to fight against with Changing Breeds, and how the Changing Breeds constantly balance their hatred for humanity's Earth-raping ways with their sympathy to humanity. Thus, they're never at peace, alien to both worlds, yadda yadda crawling in my exoskeleton this carapace will not heal.

Next is a list of legends and myths about shape-changers, most just reiterating things already said or setting up discussions in the next chapter, but two are so -inducingly bad I have to show you.

quote:

Animal-folk are all of “exotic” ethnic descent: Myth rooted in fact. A feral can be born from any ethnicity; most, however, come from regions where people live in close proximity with the animals in question, and have deeply symbolic attachments to them. A werecougar, for example, will probably come from American stock, while a werelion would probably have African ancestry.

Ferals are just eccentric human “furries”: Myth, with elements of truth. Some people consider themselves “animals under the skin”; a few of these therians even possess the Changing Gift. For the most part, though, furries are human beings and ferals are just a little bit more...

Oh joy, back to the awkward sexuality and I'm-not-racist-but from the oWoD. How I missed cringing every time I read a book. Speaking of which, the Theme of the line is "urgent righteous fury" and the Mood is "raw sensuality."

The last section is a "further reading/viewing" section with a ton of poo poo either vaguely relevant or blatantly ripped off from. What's hilarious is they credit Cesar Milan and Inconvenient Truth in here as inspirations. Lastly, a choice entry in the glossary, and another semi piece of art. Thankfully, they are not related.

quote:

“poo poo-speak”: Communication through elimination, animal-style; expressing one’s self in methods that humans find disgusting.

http://i.imgur.com/fujxw.png

Next time: More fluff so bad you'll want to rip off your own skin.

Daeren fucked around with this message at Jun 28, 2011 around 00:55

Etherwind
Apr 22, 2008
Probation
Can't post for 4070 days!


The best part about Changing Breeds is how it got written.

When the new World of Darkness was written the writers made Werewolf: the Forsaken and purposefully excluded all the horrible furry material from the old World of Darkness, making Werewolves the only shifters and setting them as amalgams of spirit and human that were intended to keep the physical and immaterial worlds separate.

Naturally the hardcore old World of Darkness Werewolf: the Apocalypse players were really annoyed by this, as it didn't let them make their man-bear-pig cat girl abominations. So, the writers went and made Skinchangers, an examination and extension of Native American myth that let humans take the form of animals by stealing their pelts/souls. They weren't as powerful as Werewolves (on account of being humans masquerading as animals), but it meant players could potentially make whatever kind of anthropomorphic shifter they wanted.

That would appease the old players, right?

Wrong. At this point the company just threw up their hands and said "gently caress it, easy money" and hired back some of the writers they'd fired, leading to Changing Breeds being published.

Daeren
Aug 17, 2009

YER MUSTACHE IS CROOKED


Etherwind posted:

Naturally the hardcore old World of Darkness Werewolf: the Apocalypse players were really annoyed by this, as it didn't let them make their man-bear-pig cat girl abominations. So, the writers went and made Skinchangers, an examination and extension of Native American myth that let humans take the form of animals by stealing their pelts/souls. They weren't as powerful as Werewolves (on account of being humans masquerading as animals), but it meant players could potentially make whatever kind of anthropomorphic shifter they wanted.

Minor derail but Skinchangers is actually a really awesome and visceral look at pretty much all the not-retarded parts of Changing Breeds, and then War against the Pure was basically the nWerewolf writers pretending Changing Breeds never happened and giving the players rules for full-fledged nonwolf shapeshifters that WEREN'T completely broken in half (with some drat interesting examples to boot).

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003


MagicHateBall posted:

I have a copy of this laying around and will take the review duty off your hands when I get back to my library, if you like. I wouldn't mind doing it, I actually sort of like SenZar.
SenZar is not a good game, but it doesn't really deserve its reputation as belonging with Synnibarr and FATAL. It's mostly famous because of the spectacularly inept sockpuppeting that its creators engaged in on rec.games.frp.misc back in the day, which was something of a clinic in 'how NOT to use the internet to promote your small-press project'. The game itself is simply bad, a Palladium-esque effort at powergaming in the world of DOOM maps and Iron Maiden album covers, except taken very, very seriously by the writers and designers. In retrospect, it comes across mostly as kids playing around.

Zereth
Jul 8, 2003

Would you think I was playing if I did...
THIS!


Actually, SenZar's system really isn't that bad, the massive powergaming aside, and the powergaming was an explicit design goal. vv

E4C85D38
Feb 7, 2010

Doesn't that thing only
hold six rounds...?


I figured out of boredom I might as well repost my analysis of the Last Res0rt RPG here. For those who caught the first part, click that link. Take a look at the update. Yeah. I for one will not be taking up that offer.

Anyway! Last Res0rt!



Based on the furry comi-- I hate myself already --c of the same name and set in the same setting, it's 33 pages long and... well, it's a thing.

The 'introduction' is written in such a way that it's only a circlejerk for fans and completely incomprehensible to anybody else (and frankly, if I understood it I'd probably hate myself even more). This is the third paragraph, right after 'WE ALL TRAVELED INTO SPACE', completely out of the loving blue:

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

The first images came out of Nashville and Atlanta, claiming that some of the smallish kangaroo-kitties (the Talmi) that were tagging along with the Celeste were actually human captives, transformed into the Celeste's furry slaves. Two days later, Tehran upped the ante, accusing the Celeste of running alien slaughterhouses -- and were a lot more comfortable risking life and limb to return with video evidence of it in action! Quickly, the rest of the world caught on, turning what was left of the world's military might on the Celeste ships -- and eventually making Earth's rise one of the bloodiest escapades known in the history of the Connection.

Let's loving count!
  1. If you have to describe something in parentheses, the actual term comes first and the description comes afterwards, not the other way around.
  2. They're actually using two hyphens instead of actual em dashes (yes, I realize in this very post I do the same thing, but I expect an RPG book to be of a higher quality), although given the rest of the typesetting (font choices, loving background image, etc) it doesn't really surprise me.
  3. None of these words except 'Talmi' are really defined, and that one only nebulously.
  4. Also, people being transformed into furry slaves for alien slaughterhouses
And we're just on the third loving paragraph on the second page of thirty three. At least this isn't that long, but strap yourselves in, I think we're in for something special.

Too late, I beat you to it. Be thankful I am taking this pain instead of you. Anyway.

Earth is suddenly renamed 'Terth' because furry aliens have a speech impediment (no, really), there are undead things on Terth (god, I feel dirty just using that word) named the 'Dead Inside', 'loose' is mixed up with 'lose', not-really-em-dashes are used inappropriately, and Twilight Vampires (no, seriously, they're described as things "that had long been thought only to be the playthings of bad theater and worse romance novels") are the bane of furry aliens. So the furry aliens put together 'Last Res0rt' to get rid of them, which is apparently Running Man, but with furry aliens and sparklevamps.

And now we are at the introduction to the game proper.

The only equipment needed is a single six-sided die and paper/pencil for character sheets, so you'd expect this to be refreshingly minimalist, right? Well.

There are three groups of stats plus one.
  • Potential Stats, which "which means a character has the potential to perform a certain level of actions", and they're upgradable via exercise, technological gadgetry, or medical implants. These are Intelligence, Charisma, Force, Speed, and Health.
  • Refinement Stats, "gained through education and practice", are Wisdom, Communication, Finesse, Agility, and Hardiness. No, it hasn't explained what the difference between 'Speed' and 'Agility' is, nor 'Health' and 'Hardiness'.
  • Sensory Stats, the "hardest to improve upon", are literally the five senses (i.e. Smell, Taste, Hearing, Sight, and Touch). Yes. Taste is a loving stat. And no, I don't wanna know what it's used for.
  • Soul Stats apparently ridiculously critical, can only be manipulated by Dead Inside, and aren't loving explained at all.

Each stat is generated with a single d6 and a Refinement Stat can't be bigger than the corresponding Potential Stat, in which case I guess you just reroll.

You pick a Species and a Spectrum, and surprisingly enough Spectrum doesn't refer to how autistic or gay a character is, but rather what type of soul you have.

The 'mechanics' have been gone over, but in a nutshell -- 6 is a critical success, 1 is a critical failure, for everything else you add the stat you're using and your roll to try to meet or exceed a target number. There are no skills.

Instead, 'refined tasks' (the example given is 'locking [a] door WHILE holding back [a] mob', so anything that's more complicated than a single simple task or two simultaneous simple tasks) use one of the Refined [sic] stats, which I assume is the same as the Refinement stats, so as per the example you would use Finesse instead of Force. The only relation these two things have is that Refinement stats are always equal or lower to the Potential ones, so I guess a fair amount of furries are just retarded. Mechanically speaking, I mean.

The book only lists 'a fraction of the species' from Last Res0rt and encourages you to make your own. Each species is 'Small', 'Mid-Size', or 'Large', which has no mechanical effect, gets +2 to one stat and +1 to another, two miscellaneous mechanical traits, and is categorized into 'furry' or 'scaly'.

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

(Yes, humans count as ‘furry’. They are apes, after all...)
Also.
And I feel this is worth mentioning.
Any two species can be cross-bred. Any two. Or, if you prefer, any three. In such a case the book encourages you to 'mix and match', and assuming that isn't code for some sort of furry orgy the most obvious definition is 'take all the bonuses and traits from both'. (Actually, upon reading way the gently caress further, you only pick one species for traits and stat bonuses if you're a two-species hybrid, but two to get all of them if you're a three-species hybrid. Not broken, no sir.)

The species featured here are "the majestic Anyr, the crafty Talmi, the powerful Zillan, the alluring Vidian, the terrifying Kendril, and (of course) the entertaining Human." Have some art featuring each of these plus a crossbreed (and I don't know which one is which):


Now, just to give you some examples of traits:

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

Deft: That second thumb and those grasping feet really come in handy. If an Anyr is using their hands / feet to try and do something that involves manual dexterity, go ahead and combine [Finesse] and [Agility] into one stat that can be used whenever you need to check [Finesse] or [Agility].
No, I don't know where that bracket for stats convention came from, but the book has decided it would be a good idea to use out of the loving blue.

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

Celeste Resistance: Because of their large ears, Anyr get an automatic attempt to resist any Celeste Tone command.
Let me just rephrase this. Large ears give you a better chance to resist the loving Bene Gesserit voice. And no, it's not innate to this species, any loving species with large ears gets this trait. There are no loving smilies that can even come close to expressing how stupid this is.

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

Dude, It Was A Joke: Humans get an automatic second try if they fail any Charisma or Intelligence Check.
I can't even begin to understand how this loving makes sense to anybody.

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

Bite: A Zillan's bite strength is legendary (enough to rip off a Talmi's ears)! When biting a target, A Zillan's [Finesse] is automatically equal to her total Strength
So, if your Finesse is normally more than your Strength, you're hosed.

Okay, Spectrum. Time to discuss some loving souls.

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

Just like kinetic energy and electromagnetic energy, the souls of every man, woman, and child you interact with are part of the creative energy of the universe. In most people with unaltered, untapped souls -- Sterlings -- these souls work like a rechargable battery, depleting and replenishing themselves over time naturally.

Of course, there’s more than just Sterlings in the universe; whether you’re a Celeste blessed with additional amounts of soul, a Light Child “blessed” with the lack of a protective soul shell (but little else), or a Dead Inside who’s gone out of their way to Shatter their own shell, a creature’s soul can be used for so much more than as a mere battery; merely lacking a soul shell opens up a whole new array of extraordinary abilities and powers.

A typical soul consists of eight soul fragments, plus the protective outer “shell” of the soul. When viewed, the soul gives off an aura that Celeste can look at and determine various traits of a person such as their faith, their “power color”, and their Spectrum.

If you have your soul available to bank against, you can perform amazing feats from reading people’s thoughts to efforts that can only be described to the average bystander as magic... Of course, you still have to take checks against these actions, but at least they’re available to you.

Each 'spectrum' has its own set of traits, the hybrids can only be Celeste or Touched, and they are all retarded.

Let's start with the Sterling.

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

From the law-abiding citizen to the badass normal, Sterlings have kept their soul shells intact.

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

From the law-abiding citizen to the badass normal

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

to the badass normal

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

badass normal
Well. This explains a fair bit.

A trait of note from them:

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

Soul Battery: Creativity may be a fickle mistress, but Sterlings are guaranteed at least [Charisma] good ideas every day (24 hours / 1000 beats). Executing on those ideas is the tough part, of course...
And an illustration:


Okay. Next up, the Celeste, which the book explains are the divinely chosen cross-species hybrids, winged, beautiful, powerful, terrible, and power-hungry (that's really what it says). Now, in addition to the game breaking hybrid mechanics, we've got this.

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

Tone: Any Celeste can (and does!) learn how to give orders that MUST be obeyed -- even if the orders involve telling the target to commit suicide! It doesn't work on everybody, though: When dealing with other Celeste, Touched, Anyr, Talmi, or Light Children, run a Charisma Check to see if it takes hold. Also, resistance stacks (so if you have an Anyr Light Child on your hands, you’ll have to run the check twice)!
Yes, you read that right. If your opponent isn't one of the chosen ones or you make your Charisma check, which has AT WORST a 1 in 6 chance of succeeding and more likely around a 1 in 2, you can tell them to go kill themselves and they have to obey. Balanced.

The Touched are just weakened Celeste. Their only power is to resist the Dune Voice. There is literally no reason to take this spectrum.

The Light Children are the Indigo Children. Really. They're "born naturally without soul shells", and "given the right training through a Celeste school, Light Children can do anything a Celeste can". Of course, this isn't represented mechanically and they're basically just the Touched for non-hybrids.

The Dead Inside (also the Djinn-si for some ungodly reason) are the Sterlings that somehow Shatter their soul, which is supposed to be painful, and the Shattered are the fresh Dead Inside that don't have any powers yet. Really. The Dead Inside have 'Dead Eyes', which are red irises with blackened "whites", but Vampires can hide them at will and Reapers don't have them at all.

The subtypes:
A Zombie is a Shattered that died before they became a Djinn. That's it.

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

Ignored Damage: What does a little pain matter? You’re already dead! Unless someone manages to blow a limb off (requiring at least three times the normal amount of damage), Zombies won’t even notice there’s a rather important muscle that’s just been hacked into...
Yep, that... doesn't have any mechanical benefit either.

The Djinn are the 'majority of the dead inside', and this has a FURTHER two subtypes, the Efreet and the Vampires. Both have Flexible Soul which allows them to gain soul fragments without giving any mechanics for it, and Improved Hardiness, which combines their health and hardiness stats, which presumably means you add them together and make that number your new Health and Hardiness. I feel like this game isn't even trying for balance anymore.

The Efreet. There, uh. Well, I'm just going to give you this:

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

Infertility: In ordr [sic] to become an Efreet, it requires sacrificing significant portions of their mortal bodies to become this powerful. Let’s leave it at that.


The Vampires can only be human (and "Because of this, many folks believe that ALL humans are secretly vampires... A misconception that plenty of humans are willing to exploit."), can hide their Dead Eyes, avoid the pain of Shattering through the Embrace, survives on a pint of blood a day and can use their blood as a second "health pool" (and as usual, no mechanics are given), and can transform into Zombie mode in which they ignore everything but 'structural damage' and is 'single-minded' and which needs to feed on at least a pint of blood to turn back before an hour's up or they 'deteriorate' and die.
Also, did I say only humans can be vampires? Well, there's a footnote there.

Last Res0rt RPG posted:

*Yes, Jigsaw’s a Vampire Talmi, but she’s the exception to the rule. It’s theoretically possible that more furry vampires could show up, but this is the freebie edition, so don’t be a special snowflake, please.

Reapers are undetectable and have an artifact of some sort crafted with the help of another Djinn that allows them to remotely cause harm to people as long as they can specifically target that person. Once again, no mechanics are given, and although I'm not an anime (or indeed Japan) person I feel like I've seen this somewhere before.

And that's pretty much the end of the book (the Example of Play is hardly worth mentioning). It's relatively short compared to the monstrous, medusean behemoths others are reviewing, and I salute each and every one of you.

Oh, did I mention that there's an online appendix which is mostly placeholder stuff? And which hawks a Last Res0rt themed GM's binder. And... oh god... a fan-made RP forum.

E4C85D38 fucked around with this message at Jun 28, 2011 around 01:49

Mystic Mongol
Jan 5, 2007


You're the right kind of dreamer to release my inner fantasy.
The invincible winner, and you know that you were born to be!

People have been talking about FATAL, but not the magic item list? I am disappointed.

Most of the normal magical items are pretty stupid. The ones with positive effects are generally poorly thought out and unbalanced, there's no guidelines for what's valuable and what isn't. No prices on anything, no guidelines for use. And some are ludicrously powerful, like the mirror that increases the strength of anyone who uses it by 1d100, permanently, or the robes that let you see the future, with no limits on use.


Robe of Realization posted:

Whosoever wears this robe will be able to realize the actions of a character one round before they ocur.


Can you tell how people are about to attack you? I imagine you'd be drat near invincible in a fight with this.


But the vast majority of magic items are cursed--some turn you into a racist caricature, some dork with your alignment / personality, most force you to have lots of sex with something embarresing, and a few are genuinely creative, in a crazy person kind of way.


Gloves of Self-Strangulation posted:

Whoever wears these gloves must pass a Common Sense sub-ability check at TH50 or attempt to strangle themselves into unconsciousness for 1d20 rounds. Upon awakening, another Common Sense check must be made to refrain from self-strangulation. Once worn, the wearer will resist all attempts to remove the gloves.


A little hard to resist efforts to remove the gloves if you've choked yourself unconscious.


Armor of Devourment posted:

This armor devours the wearer. The first round it is worn, the inside of the armor becomes wet with saliva ... in 1d10 rounds, the armor will fully consume all flesh and bone that it touches. After everything is consumed that it was supposed to protect, the armor digests it in 1d10 rounds. After digestion, the armor defecates a runny yellow liquid that smells like rotten rear end. In 1d10 rounds, this liquid coagulates on the ground and becomes a miniature, cannibalism version of the wearer who suffered devourment.... it will stop at nothing until it feeds upon the flesh of the origial character. The miniature will be 1/10th the side of the original character, and it will gargle deeply before eating each organ.


Not that any organs are left to eat.


Here, check out the only amusing of the many types of racist armor.


Armor of Greasians posted:

...will be magically unemployed for 1d100 days...


How does that even work?


Flagon of Fullness posted:

...it will always remain full regardless of how much the imbiber drinks. ... if even a drop is spilled ... a angry kobold will appear and attempt to to chop the imbiber in half with his axe. He has 350 LP but will be average in other respects.


And my favorite item of any RPG...


Brazier of Gender Discrimination posted:

Only a female may ignite this brazier. The coals will not light for a male.

CommissarMega
Nov 18, 2008

Imagine this ice fairy spinning through the sky - the STRONGEST divine omen.

NOW STOP TELLING US ABOUT THE PORNOGRAPHY YOU DID OR DID NOT INTENTIONALLY WATCH.


Kitfox88 posted:

I'd be willing to dive into Maid if Doc Hawkins or ComissarMega don't want to, actually. It's not too horrifically creepy unless you make it that way, despite the premise

What makes you think I wouldn't want to play Maid?

Kitfox88
Aug 20, 2007

Now you fucked up! You have fucked up now!


Nothing at all, obviously.

Also those racist armor things from FATAL are just...

King Doom
Dec 1, 2004
I am on the Internet.

Has anyone mentioned the armor of nigerous nincompoopery yet? I think that's what it was called anyway, I doubt google would be able to help finding a statblock for it. It gives you big hair, a bonus to playing the drums I think, and also makes you think you have a massive cock. The guys who made fatal make sure to tell you that NO! TOTALLY NOT TRUE, ALL LIES, ALL OF IT!

Zereth
Jul 8, 2003

Would you think I was playing if I did...
THIS!


I think Syrg is going more or less in order. We'll get to them sooner or later.

Doc Hawkins
Jun 15, 2010

Dashing, you say? But I'm not even moving!


I think I could do a pretty loving devastating look at Maid, but I pass, because I know that I am destined to review Empire of Satanis instead.

Naar
Aug 19, 2003

The Time of the Eye is now

My favourite part of Synnibarr is the gods section - page after page of increasingly stupid and hilarious gods, including Blade, God of Heavy Metal, Cragons and Martial Arts (who has character classes of Ninja and Alchemist and "plays the lead guitar for his rock band, Rock 'n Destruction"), Dostan the Slayer, God of the Winged Warriors who, when confronted with a challenge for battle, 'responds with the question "Is it living?". If the answer is yes, then his immediate reply is "Then it's dead," (spoken with a heavy Nordic accent)...If you're planning to combat him, it's best to practice on a high-speed blender or jet engine intake' and Kilgore, God of Technology and Unarmed Combat who is 'covered in synthetic titanite' and 'has a pair of wings and a tail. The tail is telescopic and has a phazed laser saber on the end.'

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
Probation
Can't post for 3 days!


So what happens if Dostan is challenged by a zombie?

Zereth
Jul 8, 2003

Would you think I was playing if I did...
THIS!


You know, I don't remember undead coming up in Synnibarr much if it all.

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UnCO3
Feb 11, 2010

Ye gods!


A wereman probably counts as double-alive (being a man and a man), so Dostan would render them double-dead or, as this is a double negative, alive. Maybe Dostan would be dead by this point.

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