FATAL & Friends 2014-15: The Neverending Storygame

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Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

In fairness to the horrible killers of all that is joyful and creative, crunching up leaves is fun as hell and something I did constantly as a child. So I guess I'm pretty evil.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2014 21:26

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 09:22

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Everything about Unhallowed sounds like it would be more fun if you were actually playing when dark and terrible things first rose and you had a shot at putting them back into the ground with your Lee Enfield, instead of all this 'hopeless and nihilistic because we said so without any cultural or technological progress for 200 years' stuff.

You'd think there'd be a place for a WWI era zombie apocalypse story. You'd have powerful enough technology to have a decent shot, and the imagery of a ton of battered, hosed up corpses in gas-masks rising from a trench to charge the machine gun nests and rifles of the living seems like it'd be suitable.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 16:51

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Davin Valkri posted:

Kinda sounds like Kriegszeppelin Valkyrie if the main villain were more into voodoo and occultism instead of "galvanic" computing. It'd be a zombie game I'd actually want to play.

It's frustrating to me because I ran a game like this in All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and it was one of the best games I've run. The guy I ran it for played as a Victorian governess trying to defend 'her' children as the family came to terms with the zombie apocalypse and tried to get to safety, and it was a ton of fun.

Basically, what I'm trying to get at is that it's really frustrating to see something I know worked and I had a ton of fun with get lost in yet another 'look how mature and grimdark are setting is, you can't actually accomplish anything' jackoff fest. They have an aesthetic I've run before and I know can really, really work in play, then they cock it up. I wish game writers would start to realize that writing the world as unstoppably hosed and everyone as depressed and psychopathic just makes it one dimensional and boring as hell.

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jan 20, 2014

# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 17:22

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

It's kind of amusingly fitting that the steampunk deathray crap is incredibly expensive, fragile, finicky, and doesn't really sound ready for prime time.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2014 02:02

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Of course all science has degenerated back to loving pseudoscience. Christ, UH just keeps finding new ways to disappoint.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2014 08:31

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I am totally down for learning a little about Brazilian folklore and fantasy based in South America.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2014 04:18

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

TitanWorld is seriously fun. I now know I ran it completely wrong when I took a stab at it, not having run any World games before, but everyone had fun and it matches the tone of the series it's based on wonderfully. For such a short little concept, it gets a definite thumbs up.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2014 20:08

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Kurieg posted:

Well, in the d20 Star wars games, using force lightning to electrocute someone, even a little bit, is a dark side act. Using ignite to burn someone alive from the inside out is not.

I played that game once as a Force Adept who thought of the Force as a bunch of insane and meaningless taboos he had to appease to please the spirits and let them use his powers, and so I played every loophole I could about stuff like 'If I throw a dude with the Force, Dark Side Point. If I throw a CAR at him with the Force, more damage, no Dark Side Point.'

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 05:49

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

Consigning it to fire is the only thing that can help a Palladium game.

Has anyone ever actually played a game of RIFTs as written? I've never heard of such a thing happening. I just hear people say 'Oh, RIFTS!' and then sad laughter.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2014 08:16

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Hearing about Stone basically single-handedly kept me from playing Deadlands. That is the most ridiculous kind of bullshit in older RPGs, where the game felt it had to protect its own goddamn metaplot. From what? The DM can just write that stupid crap out, and what are the designers going to do, come yell at them?

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 02:30

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

theironjef posted:

Only culturally. We make all your food, rest of America! Quit pretending we don't!

Ahem. Yes, I'm sure we out in the Midwest do nothing but fight the neverending tornado wars, and grow no crops at all.

Isn't the Coalition in the Midwest for some ungodly stupid reason in RIFTs?

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 03:07

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I've only played Spycraft 1.0 (2.0 was entirely too spergy for my group) but one of the big differences between the Soldier and the D&D Fighter is that the Soldier really, *really* is the best at combat compared to the other classes. Everyone else can help, but the Soldier is often enough to turn a combat encounter on his own and that helps a lot compared to the Fighter. They get actual spotlight moments when poo poo has gone bad and the team goes 'poo poo, send in our military escort!' and then tons of dudes get mowed down with a machine gun.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2014 02:55

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

hectorgrey posted:

I have to be honest, the problem of waiting for the crit seems to be just as big a problem as gradually whittling down an opponent's hp at high level. I mean, even if you don't crit their vitality is eventually going to run out anyway, at which point any hit they take is as good as a crit. The only real way to avoid it is to introduce other things into the fight to make it more interesting. That, and I'm assuming that your mooks don't tend to have vitality - the vast majority of NPCs really shouldn't.

You guessed right. Instead they have a weird subsystem where they make Fort saves against damage or die in one. One of many ways Spycraft 2.0 is :spergin:

# ¿ Sep 14, 2014 20:39

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Goddamn, all of this really makes me want to play Monsterhearts, but in my group, one of our longtime players hates the idea of it and always vetoes it when it comes up. :negative:

# ¿ Sep 20, 2014 19:35

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

What is it about people wanting to play angsty messes?

It gets a little old always playing more adventurous stories. Sometimes you'd like to settle in for interpersonal drama stuff. And the problem is of the two groups I'm in, neither has enough people to really play something like MH properly if we're down one (or a couple, in the other group, that one's got two guys who can't stand the idea).

# ¿ Sep 20, 2014 20:52

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Considering that among the people who thought it sounded fun I pitched it as 'Twilight but not so terrible' I doubt we'd be playing it that straight.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2014 20:55

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

It's weird to me, but whenever I look at the Serpentine I see a Lodge member from Feng Shui. Not quite human, a member of a stifling and insane family that does weird stuff and has your life already planned out for you, and with the obvious dramatic desire to break out of it.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2014 15:32

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The gear system is one of the places Spycraft 2.0 is HANDS DOWN better than Spycraft 1.0. Holy poo poo were Gadgets and Gear terrible in Spycraft 1, where it was basically impossible for a Soldier to have a pistol, armor, and a rifle, let alone anything else, without spending a bunch of the rest of the party's budget to do it.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2014 02:46

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Gerund posted:

As is, its just design for the sake of word count.

Best description of Spycraft 2.0 I've ever heard.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2014 03:00

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Mors Rattus posted:

Yeah, I rather liked the original Tau. They were interesting, and also not horrible nazi fascists.

People didn't get that the sad part of the Tau is that the Tau were an entire species of early-adventure Call of Cthulhu Investigators. They're the optimistic, heroic guys who would be the heroes of any other sci-fi setting running into a world where a bunch of poo poo they're physically incapable of understanding (because they don't do magic) and the hilarious, awesome misadventures that happen when that happens. Not to mention the times when they absolutely surprise some horrible monster that expects 'simple mortal technology' isn't going to be able to blow train car sized holes in its torso. Original Tau were way better, you are correct.

Also, no, the combat system in the 40k RPGs is not especially good, and it's very, very prone to rocket tag. I've had a great deal of fun with them and I think they're good games, but combat has suffered a lot from the system starting out as WHFRP2e INNN SPAAAACE and then trying to go higher powered without re-examining many of the core concepts of combat like armor penetration vs. armor value, PC wounds, static vs. rolled damage, etc. It mostly boils down to stay behind some kind of hard cover and use your most powerful weapon liberally.

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Oct 9, 2014

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 19:03

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Mors Rattus posted:

I will be totally honest, I'd totally play or run a game of (original) Tau Empire colony-builders. Working together, dealing with disasters, weird inter species politics and in general being the little beacon of joy in the 40k universe.

Exactly. The whole 'The Tau are totally grimdark and evil too, I swear!' is part of the whole taking the whole thing too seriously.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 19:28

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

What's all this poo poo about aiming? Back in the DH1e days, it was all full auto, all the goddamn time. +20 to hit from that, +10 from Close Range (and in any reasonable sized room you'll probably be close range) and suddenly that 35% BS is a 65% and every 10 under you get an extra gravy hit. That was before they wised up and made Full Auto -10% to hit instead of Literally The Best Combat Action Besides Maybe Aim And Fire An Accurate Rifle.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 06:09

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

PurpleXVI posted:

The problem with that implementation is that, in my entirely anecdotal experience with GM's, most GM's will err on the side of more rolls, rather than less, no matter what the system. A system that only works when GM fiat uses the system less is expecting a lot from its users.

Don't forget that like WHFRP2E, a lot of the written adventures are full of 'The players must roll at -10 to find the clue!' with little suggestion of what to do if they all blow that roll, which in turn convinces DMs that's what you're supposed to do.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 06:56

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

In practice, with all the other sources of bonus and the fact that later line characters tend to be much more accurate by default, full auto still ends up being a great idea much of the time, especially as you want multiple hits to overcome their Dodge whenever possible since dodgetanking becomes one of the only effective kinds of tanking unless you're a Marine (and even then, a Lascannon will still generally vaporize you).

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 13:54

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I really want to get Laser Feelings, now. I should give that one a shot sometime.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2014 01:21

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Say, are the pictures and such mandatory for reviews? I was thinking of writing up an obscure game from the makers of Ironclaw called Albedo that my group has been trying out because it does some pretty fun stuff for 'realistic' military sci-fi combat, but I only have a paper copy.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2014 15:59

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Henotheism predates monotheism by quite a bit. One of the big theories about where monotheism may've come from is the idea that it may've been a theological innovation to explain the defeat of the Hebrew state by Babylon and the subsequent Exile. After all, under normal henotheistic thinking that would be a sign that Yahweh was not the most powerful possible patron God since Babylon's defeat of the Kingdom and destruction of the Temple would be assumed to be mirrored in the cosmic realm by Marduk symbolically defeating Yahweh. As we can see in the Book of Jeremiah, though, the Prophet Jeremiah explains instead that Yahweh was the more powerful God but simply refused to fight to aid the Hebrews because they had broken their covenant with Him and thus He allowed them to be taken into the power of the Babylonians. This innovation would allow Yahweh to remain chief God of the cosmos (and later develop into an idea that He was the only actual God) because any defeat could be explained by His displeasure rather than His weakness.

I have a feeling that as someone who studies this poo poo, watching it get converted into D&D is going to make me really angry. Also, Moses would in no way have Paladin levels, he's Cleric all the way if anything; it'd be his successor, Joshua, who would be all SMITE AND CLEAVE LEAVE NO UNBELIEVER UPON THE LAND all the time, considering the doctrine of total sacral warfare laid down in the book of Deuteronomy (That those who occupy the Land promised to the Israelites should be utterly destroyed and all spoil destroyed to offer up to Yahweh) demanded such thoroughness. We actually see that happen in the Book of Joshua, when a soldier named Achan violates the doctrine of sacral destruction and hides some spoil for himself, and as a result the Lord allows the Israelites to be defeated by the men of Ai and routed until Joshua uncovers his sin (after being yelled at by Yahweh) and destroys the hidden goods, at which point they continue to Smite And Cleave all across the Land.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2014 20:34

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

It's kind of interesting that Judges aren't leaders. The Book of Judges is about a succession of Israelite leaders pre-monarchy, with the Judges serving as the overall leaders (and in the case of Samson, asskickers) of the people.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2014 02:40

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

You mock hippo-hiding, but Hippos will gently caress YOU UP. Hell, we think that in the Book of Job, one of the Chaos Demons that God boasts of defeating is actually just a hippo by description. The Behemoth, I believe. I'd sure as hell want to hide from Hippos.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2014 02:07

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

ZeeToo posted:

Oh, no, hippos are a serious threat to normal people. To the wizard-scribes of Egypt, maybe not so much. I couldn't tell you if they actually are, because it turns out there's no stats for hippos, anyway.

And Testament's Behemoth is a bit... different.

What is this weak poo poo? Hippos are like the number one cold blooded killing machine of the Nile!

# ¿ Oct 24, 2014 04:55

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Is there a Mythic Feat that will let you slay a shitton of dudes with the jawbone of an rear end? If you can't make Samson in this system it has no reason to exist.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2014 04:49

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

There's actually a theory among biblical scholars, based on the fact that the ancient Israelites had no conception of homosexual orientation, that the prohibition against homosexuality is actually primarily a prohibition against homosexual rape, which was something that sometimes happened to prisoners of war as a means of humiliating them or showing dominance. Basically, without an actual idea of 'Some dudes like bonin' other dudes' (and none of the stuff on homosexuality addresses the idea of ladies bonin' ladies, they probably didn't even think that was a thing that was done considering how long it took people to realize there was even a female orgasm) the only real context the authors of Leviticus had would've been man on man rape, which they thought was not a-okay.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2014 06:12

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Plague of Hats posted:

That's probably about as historically myopic as thinking homosexuality worked pretty much the same in all cultures for all history.

I suppose so. Sorry, I'm more familiar with the biblical texts themselves than anything else. Basically, the Book of Job is my primary wheelhouse, but I cannot possibly see THAT coming up in the context of a half-baked RPG supplement for d20.

Actually, adding on, is there any mention of female homosexuality in Leviticus? I recall it only being male, but it's been awhile since I reread it. Leviticus and Deuteronomy aren't that easy to get through time and time again, despite their importance. Reading relatively dry law codes makes it easy to forget details. Looking through it again I'm only seeing a prohibition on male homosexuality in 20:13, and the only mention of women is in the various prohibitions against laying with one's relatives, the wives of uncles and brothers, and a prohibition against women committing bestiality in 20:15-16, specifically for men and women both.

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 07:25 on Oct 28, 2014

# ¿ Oct 28, 2014 07:01

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I was seduced by Truenaming fitting my character concept once and played a Truenamer/Paladin. Every Truenamer level was a complete waste. Which is a shame because he was such fun to play.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 01:47

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I'm really not as annoyed by Testament as I expected to be, more just kinda baffled. D20 is very much not the right system for community, mass combat, and the epic tales of peoples, but the basic idea honestly isn't that bad? Like, with a system tuned to actually handle that kind of stuff playing as an Israelite Judge or Egyptian Priest or whatever in an RPG would actually be pretty cool.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2014 01:40

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Yeah, I remember that period. It's just kind of disappointing, as a biblical/ancient near east RPG could be cool as hell.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2014 04:13

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

So, do any of the Skins for the Skinless actually have a teenage analogue or are they all 'X Cool Monster Does This!'?

# ¿ Nov 8, 2014 22:39

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

It's always really funny to read these games that are all 'Shadowy Cabal of Superhumans Caused Everything! ...Except Hitler! NEVER HITLER!'

# ¿ Nov 11, 2014 03:12

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The funniest part is, because they have to keep them out of Well Known Major Historical Tragedies like WWII, they always come off as not actually controlling much of human affairs, really.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2014 03:17

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 09:22

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Wow. That's the most gutless half measure I've ever seen in handling WWII in one of these ridiculous settings.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2014 03:43

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