|
Mind Lords, for the spectacularly idiotic adventure that invalidates vast portions of the supplement's background material. And Psionic Artifacts of Athas when you've got a chance, please. I swear, from the consistently misused apostrophes (there's a ridiculous number of its/it's reversals) to ideas printed in point form or simply abandoned in midstream, they just had an intern transcribe all of Bill Slavisek's notes after he jumped ship from TSR.
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2012 21:30 |
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 25, 2013 02:05 |
|
|
Tieflings could have originally been humans who received a much more potent dose of the environmental stresses that give modern DS humans odd physical traits. Or they could be an earlier, failed experiment of Dregoth's. Or maybe their DNA got messed up through generations of defiling. Mekillots are goddamn awesome. Dumb as rocks and twice as tough, they'll carry you around the world without stopping... as long as you keep them watered. Just don't get between them and an oasis, or they'll roll over you like a steamroller.
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2012 01:31 |
|
|
ProfessorCirno posted:I'll end this part with a fun taste of what's to come in later chapters. We used to use bits of that book, mainly bladesong stuff because our group was pretty powergamey by default. This other stuff? We just skipped it. I'm not sure the GM knew about it. I loving winced every time someone brought that stupid Reverie thing up, usually as an excuse not to be caught unawares while they were resting. I can't remember where it is in the book, but there's a bit about elves speaking the elven language that is just goddamn precious.
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2012 12:02 |
|
|
I always had the suspicion that new and improved racial abilities added to the Complete Books of Not a Human were an after-the-fact supporting argument for nonhuman level limits in 2E.
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2012 13:26 |
|
|
Aw man, we've got a ways to go before my favourite bits of WTFery start popping up. It's kind of disturbing to think we're maybe a quarter of the way through the book.
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2012 02:42 |
|
|
So Kreen Hell is a frozen waste with a huge, insect guy named Gelug in it. I wonder if he looks like this. One thing I always found kind of amusing was the way TSR occasionally recycled monsters from defunct settings. Planescape got a few, and the Zik-Chil are almost definitely an adaptation of the Xixchil mantis-people from Spelljammer, who were known for their mastery of biological reconstruction.
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2012 16:58 |
|
|
Yep, Maztica is basically the Realms' version of the New World, complete with the discovery of tomatoes and cocoa, not-Inca, and Helmites pretending to be rapacious Conquistadores. Speaking of tomatoes and cocoa, I wish I could find my copy of Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog. It was as if Sears and Roebuck were based out of Waterdeep, selling the kind of things you'd expect from a middle Renaissance culture... with the addition of select war machine designs from Leonardo Davinci (whose analogue is a gnome, naturally) and assorted not-quite-magical oddities like catoblepas cheese (made by blind monks, who are immune to the beast's death-ray gaze). Of course, since this is the Forgotten Realms, there's a section called 'Boom's Garden' (named for a FR developer, I think) that was devoted to fetish wear. Apparently the eponymous Boom was also based out of Waterdeep where (and god drat me for remembering this) there are no nudity laws. Just mind the chill coming off the ocean. Thank you FR1. While most of Aurora's goods were non-magical, and the vast majority had no real mechanical value, they did devote a short section at the end to her logistics arrangements. Basically there's a fair lot of warehousing and traditional caravan transport to smaller and more distant locales but, this being the Realms, communication is done mostly be messenging spells and goods are often sent to the warehouses via teleportation circles. Given that teleportation had a bad tendency to messily fail when going to an unfamiliar destination back then, I don't think they did expedited shipping. Bieeardo fucked around with this message at May 17, 2012 around 23:28 |
| # ¿ May 17, 2012 23:25 |
|
|
DivineCoffeeBinge posted:I have to say, for all that the Realms gets a lot of (deserved) poo poo, it did seem to me to be the setting that most readily incorporated the kinds of poo poo most PCs get up to - things like "let's set up teleportation circles and just rake in cash from a mail-order business" or "let's use captive regenerating monsters as an endless source of meat for our restaurant" or what have you. While there are plenty of stupid real-world adaptations in fantasy gaming, like magical boom boxes and intercontinental beholder missiles (no thank you, Book of Wondrous Inventions), this one really makes sense. It's a high-magic environment, Aurora had already made a fortune, and it's a pretty natural answer to 'how do we make this faster and safer'? On a tangential note, I was just thinking of the Realms' profusion of freestanding Gates and Portals, the destinations and secrets of which have largely been lost to history. Taking that, borrowing a few bits from Eclipse Phase... and I have no idea if Fantasy Gatecrashing would really work, but it's still an amusing idea for the moment. Edit: And I think at least checking over a couple of pages would be worth it, Purple. The subject matter is generally pretty dry (and dry goods), but all of the internal copy is written with a vaguely amused voice. And the entry for Luiren Spring Cheese is... something else. Halfling narcotics, specifically. Bieeardo fucked around with this message at May 18, 2012 around 01:19 |
| # ¿ May 18, 2012 01:14 |
|
|
Right now the gatecrashing idea I've got is trying to come out as something almost parody or self-aware like X-Crawl, with characters simply going into the dungeon and looting it because it's there, or acting as honest to god not-urban explorers. There are some goblins inside, but they don't have any legal rights on this side of the portal, so who gives a drat what happens to them? Definitely heavy on the decadence. My other vague thought involved confining aberrations to the portal dungeons and probably reskinning them to keep the players uncertain of what they were facing. Definite EP influence there. I hadn't thought beyond that, since 'there's gold in there, and maybe magic: go get it' is still excuse enough for a crawl sometimes. 
|
| # ¿ May 18, 2012 02:31 |
|
|
They tell stories about disguising themselves as Thesik and banging Barani.
|
| # ¿ May 18, 2012 21:39 |
|
|
Also, 'dolphin' is Athasian Common for 'jet'.
|
| # ¿ May 18, 2012 21:44 |
|
|
Cythereal posted:I'm good with this. Might have some interesting ideas for the Eberron PbP game I'm running. If your PCs are a bunch of Paranoia-style Troubleshooters? Oh, sure. Otherwise, not really so much.
|
| # ¿ May 19, 2012 03:40 |
|
|
Go for City. That way we can compare and contrast yet another boxed set for a place that your PCs would probably never go of their own volition, and almost certainly end up hosed when they do.
|
| # ¿ May 19, 2012 13:15 |
|
|
One of the nice things about City is that it comes with a 32 page monster booklet, so you don't need to carry the whole supplement around if you want a broader variety of critters. Some of the entries are specific to the area (the Caller, which really is a wonderfully Lovecraftian thing) and others like the Krag were eventually reproduced in the Horrors of the Wastes monster compendium. Unfortunately there's also the Silt Serpent, which I think shows up in only one ambush, is worth roughly as much XP as an orc, and gets a +4 on a sneak attack that will kill you dead if you fail to save vs. poison. Oh, 2nd edition. 
|
| # ¿ May 19, 2012 16:25 |
|
|
There's a couple of other, minor fun bits in City, too. Those hanged dwarves? The ones that grapple? They don't just use their hands. Their torsos burst open and the sinews, tendons and assorted loopy sorts of innards flail outward to get in on the fun. Creepy and gross, and another fine example of how Athasian undead is a lot more hosed up than the traditional sort. New Guistenal is a clever sort of Innsmouth analogue, only these Deep Ones don't swim as much. The environs aren't really described in amazing depth, though there are some encounters detailed, which is probably just as well. As-written, it's only a matter of time before demihuman PCs are conscripted into the skeletal army, and human ones are dragged off to undergo the dray conversion process. The former might be avoided if your party makes friends with the people of Kragmorta, and spend a couple of weeks swapping out for human characters. The latter... well, hope the DM isn't an rear end in a top hat, and doesn't have a thing for using everything in a module on you.
|
| # ¿ May 20, 2012 16:42 |
|
|
It may have been from a Sage Advice pseudo-errata column, but I got the impression that all of the Vortices were dead, including the ones that had linked up with the original sorcerer kings. Thus like orcs, hobgoblins and pixies, you'd never see another functional templar after Borys and the Champions were all dead.
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2012 01:05 |
|
|
Hah! I was going to suggest the vending golem, but naturally you did that one first. Um, the Economy Super-Wash Laundromagic II. It's not as spectacular as some of the other things, but it's still good for its sheer Rube Goldberg meets Ray Harryhausen WTFery.
|
| # ¿ May 24, 2012 22:23 |
|
|
Glitterbomber posted:The game itself, in isolation, is actually a really neat game that does the whole 'ok, everyone is animals, but it's still a functioning society so yea the cows are working the fields and poo poo because we need food' well. Unless it's an amazing coincidence, its sister title Albedo is based on an honestly decent, hard military SF comic that dates back to the use of funny animals as visual metaphors rather than wish fulfillment. There's no excuse for that godawful Slayers fan art, though.
|
| # ¿ May 25, 2012 15:35 |
|
|
We used to flip through the Grimtooth's books at the hobby shop during lunch. I remember a fair lot of them following the Piano Floor design. My favourite was less a trap than a very explicit unwelcome mat.
|
| # ¿ May 25, 2012 22:38 |
|
|
I remember the Dreadnought being predictably stupid, but Kruze's Magnificent Missile is probably at least stare-worthy.
|
| # ¿ May 26, 2012 15:10 |
|
|
I suggest Sword Breaker and Eye Catcher. They're simple, they're elegant, but only the latter is seriously assholish.
|
| # ¿ May 28, 2012 21:36 |
|
|
Kavak posted:The Tomb of Horrors basically invented Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies-style bullshit. What could we possibly be in for that would be worse? The Tomb was built into a hillside. Sure it had a few fake entrances, but it was relatively easy to get to if you really wanted to. The Valley is somewhere in the middle of the Silt Sea, with all of the attendant dangers and annoyances of traversing that region. The Tomb's construction... well okay, it was a bastard of deathtraps and gently caress-the-smartass effects. The Valley's construction... did you ever know players who designed their perfect fortresses, the ones without any penetrable windows, and carved out of a single hunk of rock that they lopped off the top of a mountain, and it had like hydroponics and poo poo so they could survive a siege? One of them grew up and designed the Dragon's digs.
|
| # ¿ May 29, 2012 02:56 |
|
|
Yup, the Trapper's been in since 1st edition. Even better, it can make a part of itself look like a treasure chest to attract prey!
|
| # ¿ May 29, 2012 16:09 |
|
|
Probably due to a rumour that the only carpenter capable of building a cart to comfortably carry the PCs gigantic testicles lives there.
|
| # ¿ May 29, 2012 18:12 |
|
|
Crossbows? Anyone who doesn't check their privy for a whole assassin is just asking for it. Crossbows at least need a trigger. Water weirds, on the other hand, can play dead until you drop a deuce.
|
| # ¿ May 29, 2012 18:41 |
|
|
Purple's got it, as always. 2nd Edition AD&D was 100% compatible with 1st Edition. Ignoring decisions made to make it more 'family friendly' (eliminating the Assassin class, getting rid of Demons and Devils, redoing the art so that there weren't nude women in the monster manual), it was mainly a reorganization of rules that had been accruing for over a decade, with some play-balance adjustments (racial level limits went up slightly, and damage caps on spells were implemented). That's what it began as, anyway, before Complete Books and boxed settings began to erupt like mushrooms. BECMI was designed to progress through increasingly complex ideas, as much instruction manual or textbook as rulebook. Basic was... well, very basic, only levels 1-3. Expert went from 4-14, which included the old Name Level scheme around 10th (where hit point progression dropped to a point or two per level) and associated building of Strongholds like thieves' hideouts and wizard's towers and such. It was also where non-human characters found out that their advancement got weird from then on. Companion was where things got really interesting: bits and pieces of new armour and weapons were added, the former mainly to fill the spaces in the descent to 0 AC. It was also where strongholds gave way to organizations: the party thief might found or take over a full-blown guild, and the fighter isn't just a guy manning a border fort, but becomes landed gentry. Rules for unarmed combat, mass combat and knightly tourneys come into play. Non-human characters find out that they still get to accumulate XP, but instead of levels they get very occasional boosts to their combat effectiveness and saving throws. I never got the Master set, but I do know it's where poo poo starts going down on a national, if not global scale. That's where the Paths to Immortality were originally detailed, five or six of them I believe, ranging from being totally loving awesome at your class, to being really loving awesome at a bunch of different things, to-- I won't steal thunder from whoever's doing Wrath of the Immortals. The original Immortals box was just... weird. I think the page count was less than sixty, and some of it wouldn't have been out of place in a physics textbook. The redesign and fleshing out they did for Wrath is vastly better, though I miss things like the dittomonster.
|
| # ¿ May 30, 2012 03:25 |
|
|
GorfZaplen posted:I own the Immortals box. It's almost crazier than Immortal's Handbook, I'd wager. Almost. I might do it after I finish Paranoia XP. I was flipping through my copy a week or two ago. It's wonderfully strange, but really only interacts with regular D&D on a tangential basis. And by 'wonderfully strange', the first few pages of the game read like a condensed version of Flatland, explaining how there's five spatial dimensions and how each one can be perceived and interacted with, and probably even more hidden beyond a Dimensional Vortex that squats where the sixth one should be.
|
| # ¿ May 31, 2012 01:41 |
|
|
Don't forget that Dark Sun clerics can literally conjure multiple cubic feet of their patron element per day. Even if one of the PCs isn't a cleric of Water, someone's henchman/follower/hanger-on probably is. That alone will go a long way to mitigating day-to-day dehydration.
|
| # ¿ May 31, 2012 03:35 |
|
|
The Forgotten Realms conversion from 1st to 2nd edition was loaded to the gills with metaplotty garbage. A novel trilogy, a comic adaptation of that, a few adventure modules that dragged PCs around by the nose and forced them into a trial in Shadowdale, Where lovely Sues Retire...
|
| # ¿ Jun 3, 2012 03:41 |
|
|
In a vacuum, the Avatars novels were really fun reading. In the context of a campaign getting over the rules bumps between 1st and 2nd edition, it was really problematic. Not only do you have the issue of virtually an entire character class literally dying off (toodles, Assassins!) but both caster types are deeply affected by the gods being cast down and magic being massively hosed. Worse for the adventures, the gods are doing all of the cool poo poo in the background, and the PCs are stuck babysitting the dull mortal protagonists from the novels-- one of whom is less affected by the magical chaos than most, and grows in power by leaps and bounds between modules. You get shuffled between set pieces, one module ends on a cliffhanger where you're arrested for Elminster's murder (hope you've got the third adventure handy...), and while some bits and pieces from the novels are explained mechanically, the whole thing ends on a brown note. You've got the not-ten-commandments and the over-god is calling the lovely NPCs up to take their place in the pantheon... and they look back toward the PCs for encouragement. After all that crap, you just get to shout at the NPCs until the DM gets bored and has them ascend. The end. The early Dragonlance stuff really was good, though. I have one or two of the original modules around somewhere, and remember that they had business-card sized pullouts attached to the covers with stats and capsule bios for PC appropriate characters from the related novels. One was apparently supposed to end at the beginning of a railroad trip (stuck on an ice floe for four months?) but they were kind enough to offer suggestions for avoiding that while still being able to link in with the next adventure.
|
| # ¿ Jun 3, 2012 15:15 |
|
|
At least one Babylon 5, Star Trek, a whole goddamn slew of Doctor Who RPGs...
|
| # ¿ Jun 4, 2012 01:16 |
|
|
Kavak posted:Both Last Unicorn Games and Decipher did Star Trek RPGs- I still have all the Decipher books, but I don't know if they're remarkable enough for this thread. Oh man, I was thinking of the old, old FASA run that borrowed from TOS, the Animated Series, and bits of the earlier movies.
|
| # ¿ Jun 4, 2012 02:26 |
|
|
General Ironicus posted:Aren't there only two Doctor Who RPGs? The FASA one had a decent stack of supplements but it was all one game. The current one is basically kid's first storygame but there's nothing wrong with that, except having to compete with Mouse Guard. I've come across several other ones in bookstores over the years, printed in pocket or trade paperback format. No idea if they were licensed by the BBC (or if they were playable), but they made it to print and distribution somehow.
|
| # ¿ Jun 4, 2012 11:33 |
|
|
That's a dead ringer for a scene from the Fable games, right down to the missing stairs and the demon door across the chasm.
|
| # ¿ Jun 5, 2012 01:16 |
|
|
HitTheTargets posted:So is he naked or is that a small scrap of loin-cloth I see currently not covering his loins? That big long thing snaking down the dais? That's not his tail.
|
| # ¿ Jun 5, 2012 03:34 |
|
|
We could always hold a magnifying glass over this thread for Bliss Stage: http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...hreadid=3487363
|
| # ¿ Jun 7, 2012 00:59 |
|
|
TK-31 posted:Also the author is a troll, that does not excuse him for being tasteless but there you go. That was the explanation I was given for 'Hot Guys Making Out'. I don't know Bliss Stage from a hole in the ground, but a few other people I shared the thread with were just baffled by the reactions in it.
|
| # ¿ Jun 7, 2012 03:40 |
|
|
On one hand, BS makes me think of Lord of the Flies or Gas-s-s-s with a lot of squeaking and 'onee-sama!' It's established that rules of law and society break down quickly, even before the aliens show up, and let's face it-- kids in their young teens are already having sex today, under the noses of perfectly aware adults. And even so, it would probably be a lot less of an issue if it were confined to characters in their late teens-- sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, up until wherever you start falling into the Bliss. Looking at what Purple's posted, there isn't though: there's a codified incest taboo, but none for being the creepy senior who tells freshman girls they're so much more mature than their friends. It seems unlikely that it's implied, because... come on. Not getting bennies from incest would be implied in that case, too. Regarding Rule Zero (or not), the author mentions the Forge. I've heard that name on occasion before. Could it offer some insight into just what the heck he's up to here, beyond 'my game, my rules'?
|
| # ¿ Jun 7, 2012 19:12 |
|
|
Flavivirus posted:Having read that Forge thread posted earlier, I think it's more that this game is, as Ron Edwards said, "about underage sex in a time of forced maturation and overwhelming responsibility, and the edge but real potential for sexual abuse". This would have been a much better explanation for the game and its themes than 'I wanted to write a game where sex wasn't so much of a taboo'. It's right there. It doesn't sneak up on you like a psychotic twelve year old who wants to be special friends forever. You can put it down and step away without necessarily having stepped in it, and if you hack at it you're at least aware of the themes that the mechanics were originally meant to support.
|
| # ¿ Jun 7, 2012 20:52 |
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 25, 2013 02:05 |
|
|
It's 'better' (and that's a very loose use of the word) because it lets you minimize contact. If the creepy guy in your group pulls it out and says 'it's mecha, with sex, and some of that Persona JRPG!' you're probably going to have a different reaction than if he says 'It's Lord of the Flies, with mecha, and underage sex!' I'd flip through the former game because, c'mon, it's got mecha. The latter I wouldn't touch in a million years, because I'm not interested in playing Bad Touch Gundam. Edit: And once it sunk in that the sex was happening between fourteen year olds, the Creepy Guy would be lucky if he got away with the world's biggest  .
Bieeardo fucked around with this message at Jun 7, 2012 around 21:19 |
| # ¿ Jun 7, 2012 21:15 |
|
