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Alien Rope Burn posted:Once again, all the art in this "chapter" (Palladium, for whatever reason, never uses chapters) is reused from other sources. But at least we have time for part two of "First-Timer"! Dude just wants to blaze rainbows all over the place. 
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Oct 6, 2013 21:41
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It's like the old Gi-Joe cartoons: One side fires blue, the other red, and if you fiddle the frequencies you can fool the enemy!
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Oct 6, 2013 21:50
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John Wick's Eldritch High PART 1: WELCOME TO ELDRITCH HIGH  Alright everybody, are you ready for some Wick? God I hope so because I wasted  on this stinker and I'm looking to get SOME use out of it. Eldritch High is like Witch Girl Adventures in that it's a Harry Potter ripoff with (sorta) minimalistic rules and a rather loose magic system. Unlike Witch Girl Adventures which is ruined by its creators being creepy perverts that don't read their own materials, Eldritch High is ruined by Wick having what I can only assume is his herd abused suck-ups that he calls a gaming group playtest and edit it.Let's start this by saying that while it IS Pay What You Want now, it was indeed when I got it. Let's compare this to another super-light story-game that comes complete with its own not-Harry, Fate Accelerated. Fate Accelerated not only started its life cycle as a Pay What You Want, but the recommended price is $5. It has about 50 pages, has great art assets, and is very well put together. Eldritch High asks for twice as much money for 10 to 15 fewer pages, barebones production values, and as you'll soon see, FAR less playability.Enough hedging, on to the book itself! It starts with some credits honoring the people who helped Wick poo poo this game out including Jess Heinig who apparently gave him the idea for including Necromancy and was apparently paid by having Wick stick him in the credits along with the phrase "Omnipotent effort"  in Chinese (I think, I'm using Google translate after all). Everyone else is just a name and a job title so I'm assuming they were payed in reduced beatings. The credits also list NINE PLAYTESTERS whom I would be hunting down right now if I didn't think that being forced to playtest for John Wick was punishment enough.The book goes on to give 5 paragraphs of in-game fiction where Head Master (that can't be the right spelling) Dominic Vex greets the new students gives them the basic gist of the *deep breath* "Alexander Circe Academy for the Study of the Esoteric and Eldritch Arts" or just "Circe's" for short. It's your typical wizard boarding school and aside from a ham-fisted mention of the dark arts being badwrong, not too bad. The book switches gears and sums up the premise (wizard high-schoolers fighting the dark secrets of not-Hogwarts) and what you'll need (pencils, paper, players, etc.) before leading in to a summery of the setting. I'm posting this part here because holy hell: quote:The Shadowrealm Am I the only one who thinks that that is way too rambling and could stand to lose a paragraph? I'll sum up the rest. Normal people can't see magic because of a barrier called The Veil, people who have The Sight can see it, the academy find kids with The Sight and trains them. Pretty standard stuff. It also says that something called The Shadow Watch finds these kids, relocates them (as well as their parents), and makes sure that the staggering 50% of students that drop out have their magic taken away. Um, question. HOW DO YOU HAVE THAT HIGH OF A DROPOUT RATE WHEN THE GOAL IS JUST TO MAKE SURE THESE KIDS DON'T GET EATEN BY A GRUE?!?  Anyways, it doesn't say who the The Shadow Watch are or how they do all that so we're left to imagine MIB with wands (the truth is far less sensible).As for the campus itself, it's in some between dimension that only people with The Sight can find the entrance to. It also has the obligatory ruined forbidden wing, labyrinthine library that maintains itself, student dorms sorted by personality, and Kung Fu Dojo. Wait, what? quote:The Dojo That- I- Why is the Shadow Watch called the Black Watch in one paragraph? How does the sun rise if the school is in Elsewhere? Why is there there a banner with magical "gibberish to non-students" writing on the wall? Why do the words on the banner only make sense in the dojo? And why is the equivalent of "Back off bub" even important?!? … Moving on, the dorms introduce our first taste of game mechanics. Of course, since this is a bad Wick game the mechanics aren't explained until later and shows signs of poor playtesting. There are five dorms and each one gives "two bonus cards" whenever making a "risk" associated with its founder's specialty. Fraser Court is the Ravenclaw dorm and gives bonuses to knowing things, Fogg Hall is the Slytherin dorm and gives bonuses to being sneaky, Hinrichs Hall is the Hufflepuff dorm (sorta) and gives bonuses to dealing with animals, Circe's Hall is the Ravenclaw dorm and gives bonuses to figuring things out, and Savage Hall is the Gryffindor dorm and gives bonuses to being charming. If you noticed that Fraser Court is both redundant in the face of Circe's Hall and the only one called "court" congrats, you are a better editor than *glances at the credits* Emily Woerner. Seriously, the first taste of mechanics and they are not only given zero explanation, but they are also BLATANTLY UNTESTED! Jesus, we haven't even gotten to the real meat of this game and I could already bitch for HOURS. I'm taking a break to worry about whether or not Robotic Age will get funded. If you want me to continue the review, please say so. Otherwise I might assume that nobody cares and go do something else. I'm a rookie on these forums after all and I don't even know if I need to do anything other than just post a review for it to get made "official". total: 2 total: 3Pages read: 5/34 (plus credits) Next time, CHARACTER CREATION! or John Wick still doesn't understand Skill systems EDIT: Super Special Awesome Audience Participation Time! I wanna show off just one of the many kicks to the nuts that this game gave to me. To simulate this, I want anybody in the thread who feels like it to throw out a character concept for me to make BEFORE I hit Character Creation. Nothing too complicated, just a few personality traits and talents with maybe what dorm they're in or a preferred type of magic for your little Harry Potter OC to swing about. Trust me, there's a good reason why I'm asking for this NOW. AccidentalHipster fucked around with this message at 07:51 on Oct 7, 2013 |
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Oct 7, 2013 04:35
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IGNORE THE DOUBLE POST!!!
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Oct 7, 2013 04:43
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Is it cool if I post up a pointless, terrible minis game here? Based on a whim, I tracked down a copy of Gregory Horror Show, one of the worst ideas to ever be poo poo out during the height of the CCG boom. It is staggering in how the game manages to make every wrong decision possible, while having some entertaining minis and drawing from some cool, quirky inspiration. I also found out that one of the guys I work with used to game with Wick. I'll bug him for some stories this week.
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Oct 7, 2013 04:45
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Holy poo poo. They made a minis game out of that? I wonder if it plays anything like the weird console game.
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Oct 7, 2013 04:57
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Hedningen posted:Is it cool if I post up a pointless, terrible minis game here? Based on a whim, I tracked down a copy of Gregory Horror Show, one of the worst ideas to ever be poo poo out during the height of the CCG boom. It is staggering in how the game manages to make every wrong decision possible, while having some entertaining minis and drawing from some cool, quirky inspiration. Go right the gently caress ahead.
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Oct 7, 2013 05:03
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AccidentalHipster posted:John Wick's Eldritch High Why do game designers always have to "darken up" setting concepts? It can't just be a magical school, it has to be a school for magic in a world filled with UNFATHOMABLE EVIL. Why's he even talking about spousal murder in a game about kids?
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Oct 7, 2013 05:25
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AccidentalHipster posted:If you want me to continue the review, please say so. Otherwise I might assume that nobody cares and go do something else. I'm a rookie on these forums after all and I don't even know if I need to do anything other than just post a review for it to get made "official". I don't think anyone in either thread has said "no, stop" and they aren't likely to say it to you, either.
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Oct 7, 2013 05:36
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Yeah, don't worry about it. We're not like the Let's Play forum or anything in here, it's totally informal.
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Oct 7, 2013 05:40
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Midjack posted:I don't think anyone in either thread has said "no, stop" and they aren't likely to say it to you, either.
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Oct 7, 2013 05:41
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The only time that really happened was the lovely first review of Ars Magica that skipped over the entire segment on the history of Ars Magica Purple XVI was just used to making GBS threads on bad games I guess.
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Oct 7, 2013 05:43
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Maxwell Lord posted:Why do game designers always have to "darken up" setting concepts? It can't just be a magical school, it has to be a school for magic in a world filled with UNFATHOMABLE EVIL. Why's he even talking about spousal murder in a game about kids? Wick is also a big believer in RPGs being used to push characters and their players to the edge of their tolerance and/or what they feel comfortable with (see his essay collection "Play Dirty" for details). Everything has to be cranked up to 11 all the time, the emotional stakes have got to be sky-high even in a game about kids attending Magic High School. His guitar has only one string on it, and he strums it as hard as he fuckin' can. FMguru fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Oct 7, 2013 |
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Oct 7, 2013 06:26
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Bieeardo posted:Yeah, don't worry about it. We're not like the Let's Play forum or anything in here, it's totally informal. Good to know since the lurking on the LP accounts for 99% of my activity on SA. In the meantime, if anyone wants to make a suggestion for an EH character before I actually hit character creation, please do so. I'd like to show just how much this game stomps on the you hopes and dreams. I'll edit my post to include this request as well.
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Oct 7, 2013 06:54
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And if anyone wants a non-creepy Harry Potter RPG, here's Broomstix from Jared A. Sorensen http://www.memento-mori.com/other/games/broomstix.html It used to be up as a freePDF, but as it's literally a HP RPG I guess he decided it was safer in plain text.
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Oct 7, 2013 07:02
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There was a Harry-Potter-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off D20 RPG that came out during the D20 boom, called Redhurst Academy of Magic. Not sure how well D20 supported HP-style adventuring, but I remember the book being a very nice physical artifact (art/layout/binding).
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Oct 7, 2013 07:17
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Speaking of making GBS threads On Bad Games... I'm going to go through the Superbabes Adventure because... Well, frankly, I don't have the intestinal fortitude to pull of 13 Magazine right now. Or enough vodka. Friend of mine suggested making a drinking game out of WGA. Not sure my liver would survive it. Superbabes: Game of the Century  This is a sequel to a module I don't have, called Return of the Ravagers. They somewhat assume you've played it, but just in case they felt the need to give nearly a full page of back-story on how the owner of the New York Patriots was trying to own the spirit of baseball by buying a possessed bat. And when that didn't work, stealing it from the current owner, who bought it in at garage sale. Welcome to the Stonebrenner and Casey show. You guys? The Players? Not actually that important, he just needed a bunch of super-powered women in skin tight outfits to get the bat into the open. Not kidding. See, without the Spirit Of Baseball being actively used, baseball was going into a slump, which is what was causing all those scandals and such during the 90's. So Casey started playing in various exhibition matches. A phrase which is going to take a darker meaning today. Thus, Stonebrenner decided that the best way to get the bat from her wasn't to hire a crack team of super-thieves or anything, but to use his extensive network of contacts to blackmail two teams worth of super-humans. Which is how you're brought into this mess. The adventure assumes that you're using the core FemForce team and have been playing with the villains from the book. If you're not... well, you'll have to improvise, but there are three characters that have to remain. Those being Casey(of course!), Proxima(one of the villainous characters, and plot important), and Yankee Girl(because having her as the designated catcher reduced fatalities when they tested it). And now, to draw your players into being part of this charity baseball game/overly elaborate heist. First, you blackmail the characters emotionally by the "It's for charity!" and the Make A Wish Foundation. Then you go after their backgrounds. Old high school coach, their corporate masters, or for the country. Just get them out there, even if it means revoking their stuff privileges until they cooperate. And then you make them wait three weeks. Now, to be fair, it's only three in game week and doesn't suggest you put it off for three sessions. Which would be a little much, even if you were running the One Night Stands in-between. Yes, they're actual Superbabes products, and yes, they're called quickies. Anyway, back to the game at hand. If the players ask any questions about what's going on and you don't want to answer them... Don't! That's the game's advice, have Stonebrenner's lawyers and PR stonewall them. So, it's time for the pre-game PR publicity shoot and all that, the GM is invited to get all of the BE out of the way here, and then make hints that there will be more BEs to come... That's Bimbo Events, not the other one. Although with this game, it's hard to tell. During this point, real baseball players show up to warn the players that the Bat is a mystic artifact and blah blah. The above back-story. And so, it's time to move onto the locker rooms, which are booby trapped every which way. Two pages of nasty things to do, each one of them done to set off the next. They've drilled holes in the walls for Celebrity Skin, the Corporate Heroine's costume has been replaced with a string bikini and matching thong accompanied by a forged note from PR saying "This will really show off our assets to the folks at home!", the benches are coated in Crazy Glue, dyepacks are put in the shower heads so that they start dying people after about ten minutes, and the locker room has a very nice bathmat. It's a large absorbent sponge. It is, in fact Da Sponge. He's just going to lay there and try not to move. Staring at all the beautiful naked women with water running down them. Yeah. Da Sponge is... one of the skeezier elements in this. And you do get a roll to determine if something's wrong... but only if you've dealt with Da Sponge in the past. Though, if you do something to get him riled up, a brawl might start. Or you just catch him moving. Moving on, there's a Limburger cheese bomb in someone's locker, a d10 table to determine what color you turn if you go back into the shower after the ten minutes of safety are up, the Government Sponsored hero has had her costume replaced with a non-Span-X version that's two to three sizes too small, and the character with Get Big(if you've got one) has a perfectly fitted non-Span-X replica... And if you've got a guy in the party, just to make sure he doesn't miss out on the fun, he gets assaulted by Morgana the Kissing Bandit. Finally, right before the game start, it's revealed who they'll be facing, all an star line-up of super-villains! We've got Proxima, Krone, Alexandria The Greatest, Maidenform, Vaklyra, Cherry Bomb, Prom Queen, XT, and finally, you know him, you loath him, Da Sponge! If you don't know him yet... you will. There's a listing of who plays what position and what they're getting in return... and Da Sponge is just happy to be here. Very, very happy. They note that Da Sponge isn't a woman, but it's arguable that he's not a man, either. Anyway, it's time for the game. The usual Pre-Game stuff happens, there's a "Lush Rimbaugh" joke... They give a 'nice' little rule that just play the highlights reel. And then they give rules about how fast the ball should be going. Which is Ten MPH for every point of muscles the pitcher has. And then it gives a formula on how to take that number and determine how hard it is to hit. The problem here is that their numbers don't add up. They say that it's hittability is the MPH diivided by ten... Which would up it at the Muscles of the pitcher, and then they say that a ball thrown by Proxima would be at hittability 5, because she has forty five muscle, and... Oh screw it, I've scanned it, you can see their insanity.  Anyway, there's some nice advice on how to run the villains they've assembled for you that amounts to "Only two of them even knows how to play, ones the robot and the other is stuck in the outfield." And then they decide to break it down by inning. First Inning, the thugs try to steal the bat while Casey is pitching. And the first PC to get to second base will be knocked the hell out by Alexandra... Who didn't know that you can't punch people in baseball. Second Inning, Cherry Bomb has rigged your helmets to explode, doing 3d10+10 damage if you get beaned. And Poxima will very much try to bean you. If you're using the team given, she'll go after Stardust, who can take it due to invulnerability... If not, well, you better hope that the first person to bat can take forty damage to the head plus whatever the ball does. Flying at 450 Miles Per Hour, a baseball is a lethal weapon, I'd say. Close inspection will reveal which of the remaining helmets are fitted with explosives. The Third Inning, the mascot tries to steal the bat from the bat boy(who will be oogling the players) and thus being a constant thorn in your side. Unless you actually hit him, he's not going anywhere as he's the official stadium mascot. When the Away Team is on the field, Valkyra(a Okay, we're halfway there. Fifth Inning, Promixa and Krone start shouting insults and eventually they start throwing punches at each other and anyone dumb enough to break it up. And then, as they can't get replacement players for a game like this, they have to shake and make-up. The Sixth Inning... Well, see for yourself.  Yeah. Seventh, Alexandria gets a call and goes off to confront Casey because she's just been informed that Casey is cheating by way of magic possessed bat. After some bickering, Casey hands Alexandria the bat, and the bat explains that it's the spirit of competition, and Alexandria respect competition, blah blah. Long story short, she doesn't hand the bat over to the literal big bad. Eight, Valkyria murders a man on national television. You know those nutters who used to parachute into major sporting events? One of them show up, and Valkyria being "a nasty nazi" really doesn't want to be here, but an opportunity to kill someone perks her up and she'll hit a homer right through the guy. Unless you've got someone who can fly to catch the ball. Nine, Stonebrenner just says to heck with it and goes Giant, starting the final battle. I just wanna take a moment to be a huge nerd who has actually read the comics... It states that Stonebrenner used the Giganta Serum. The problem with this is that the Giganta serum has flaw in it that makes you ultra-empathic, and that's why Giganta was out of her head with rage all the time. She was feeling everyone's fear, anger, and guilt and lashed out at the things people felt were oppressing them. Eventually, this was fixed, but at no point was an Improved Giganta Serum without this fatal flaw made... and it didn't really allow her to resize. She was just Giant. Anyway, they've choreographed this battle nicely. Maidenform, the robot I didn't mention because she doesn't do anything useful, stands around like a post because she's been reprogrammed to play baseball and doesn't know how to fight. So she'll be used as a weapon. Proxima will go after Stardust, any other character from Stardust's planet, or Krone, in that order. She'll fight until there's no point in fighting anymore. If all of her preferred targets are taken out, she'll try to blend in with the crowd. Krone will try to kill Proxima. If Proxima is out of the fight, Krone will just sit there. Alexandria will wrestle a member of whichever team looks to be strongest. Theoretically, it'll be the heroes, but she'll switch sides in an instant. Again, she's just playing the game. She'll compliment everyone while trying to wrestle them into submission. Valkyra, the Nazi will use Maidenform as a bat and beat the crap out of whoever she can. If Stonebrenner accidentally steps on her, she'll go after him. Cherry Bomb knows she's never going to be paroled, so she'll just try to blow everything up that she can. And if you ask for a grenade, she'll throw you a live one. Casey will take advantage of this. Prom Queen goes nuts and tries to take own whoever is around, but she's pretty much just a normal human and will go down like a chump. X-T will just sit there until someone gives her an order that doesn't require too much thought. Which will probably be one of the players.  And then, you have to take out Stonebrenner... After that, it's time to deal with the aftermath. The suggest taking a quick break before this part, and for once I agree with them. What happens is... Stonebrenner gets off scot-free because he's got expensive lawyers and he doesn't even have to pay for the damages to the stadium, his insurance will cover it. The players get 4 Fame points, plus some extra for their bimbo events, 5500 XP. Casey moves on, and the game ends. That said, I'd strangle any GM who ran me through this and then said "lol, the big bad has money! Nothing happens!" The back has character Sheets for Casey, Stonebrenner, Cherry Bomb, and X-T. The rest, we're told, are in Knockouts and Powerhouses. Nothing really to say here except that they accidentally put Casey's picture on Stonebrenner's sheet. Either that, or he has a wonderful rack for a 64 year old business man.
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Oct 7, 2013 07:30
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Unknown Armies is up on Bundle of Holding for the next twelve hours or so.
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Oct 7, 2013 08:36
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AccidentalHipster posted:John Wick's Eldritch High Castella D'Agincourt, Deceitful Necromancy Major and Secret Student of the Forbidden Arts
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Oct 7, 2013 12:16
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Daisy Moonchild Jones Hufflepuff, bit of a flowerchild, likes potions. Also fallen for some bad boy Slytherin and is trying to teach herself the Dark Arts to impress him.
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Oct 7, 2013 12:29
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FMguru posted:Wick is also a big believer in RPGs being used to push characters and their players to the edge of their tolerance and/or what they feel comfortable with (see his essay collection "Play Dirty" for details). Everything has to be cranked up to 11 all the time, the emotional stakes have got to be sky-high even in a game about kids attending Magic High School. His guitar has only one string on it, and he strums it as hard as he fuckin' can. Well, one, as we've seen before, Wick has a fixation on revenge fantasies. Furthermore, there's an undercurrent of anti-romanticism in his writing, where anybody that thinks they're a hero is a fool and anybody who actually succeeds at anything either does it by undergoing a gauntlet of suffering or by being an weasely Machiavellian anti-hero.
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Oct 7, 2013 12:53
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 Rifts World Book Five: Triax and the NGR Part 4: "Super Trooper pilots are expected to destroy the Maysies or themselves when under the threat of capture." The next part of the book starts to cover Triax gear, and makes up the chief content of this book. The book is 220 pages, and 121 of that is Triax gear and vehicles, and another 9 pages are dedicated to Gargoyle gear. To Siembiedafy, that makes 59% of this book an equipment section, with 55% of it just being Triax gear. This is presumably why Triax gets first billing over the NGR on the cover. The problems is that there are a lot of basic questions about the NGR that go untouched, like:
What's more, this book reprints all the Triax material from Rifts Sourcebook. It includes all of the following, which I won't be covering again, but here's links to the old review and a list of all the copy-pasted material: "Does Not Compute": Triax T-21 Terrain Hopper Power Armor, Triax X-10 Predator Power Armor, Triax X-1000 Ulti-Max Power Armor, Triax X-500 Forager Battlebot, and the Triax DV-12 Dyna-Bot. "The latest from the design wizards of Wilk's Laser Industries Inc.": TX-500 Triax Borg Rail Gun, TX-30 Triax Ion Pulse Rifle, TX-11 Triax Sniper Laser Rifle, TX-16 Pump Rifle, TX-5 Pump Pistol, The Explorer (listed as the T-43 Explorer here), and the Falcon 300 Jet Pack. And with all that in mind, we can finally start covering the gear section. Triax Body Armor NGR "Cyclops" Body Armor ... is a misnomer, because it has sensors at the brows as well as the central "eye". This is only used by the NGR military, mind - they don't sell it lightly. All Cyclops body armors used by the NGR have the following traits:
With all that covered (I guess tiny fuzzy dice that hang between your eyes is optional), it's time for some armor!  May present some depth perception issues?
  Were the NGR medic and engineer toys in wave 2 or wave 3? T-Series Triax Power Armor Triax T-C20 Terrain Hopper Power Armor This is the military version of the T-21 Power Armor from Rifts Sourcebook (linked above), and gets modestly improved M.D.C., dinky forearm lasers, and a mini-missile launcher on the back with six missiles. It's not a serious upgrade on the original, but it is an improvement. Not much to say here, but in this book - because it's so blatant - it's time to start talking about the elephant standing next to Kevin Long, which is the distinct similarities between his work and known Japanese robot designs. Like, say, Sylia's hardsuit from Bubblegum Crisis.   I'm not saying it's a swipe, I'm just asking questions.  Triax T-31 Super Trooper Robot Destroyer Power Armor  Are you ready for some footballll Try saying that five times fast. This is an anti-armor suit also known as the "Can-Opener", designed to to combat armor by closing in swiftly and clinging on to vehicles and larger armors where it can attack vital areas "like a tick on a hound dog". Its M.D.C. values are only modest, though, so it needs to close fast. It gets two powerful shoulder missles (that have only have a 65% chance of working properly), special limpet bombs called "maysies" that a super-secret technology that lets them stick to anything, mini-missles in the legs, a vibro-blade, grappling hook, and laser torch. It also has a ton of fancy sensors, can adhere to things with its feet, and a distress homing beason. The foot-sticky technology is supposed to be super-secret, and has a self-destruct sequence that only blows up the feet sticky system! Hoookay.   Compare and contrast. Some Battletech fans find this tactical design familiar, and it should be, because it seems like it just might be a Rifts-ified version of the Clan Elementals featured in Battletech for years before the publication of this book. Ironically, Kevin Long would go on to do some freelance art for Battletech later on. The weird thing about this suit is that it's a dedicated anti-giant mecha suit, when their foes only rarely ever field giant mecha. Triax T-550 Glitter Boy  The unit number is on the crotch, where it belongs. This is a special glitter boy designed as a result of the earlier technology trade with Free Quebec. It's still rare, but is going into swift production, and in addition, Free Quebec will start producing them in several years. They have mostly reduced M.D.C. compared to the regular version, but add a short-range laser (which supposedly can rotate, but looks pretty fixed in the art), vibro-sword, and mini-missle launchers in the legs (I can't see them, are those the ports on the knees?). Its version of the boom gun is computer-controlled and can fire on its own, but still takes melee attacks to do so - it just means the glitter boy could lug around a gun or whatever while firing. It's a relatively balanced variant on the existing model, overall. But one of the annoying things is that Kevin, for whatever reason, likes to turn any opening or gap in an armor design into a weapon. I think it does a real disservice to this artists, and bogs down these writeups with a bunch of crappy weapons. Why have another shoulder laser that does one-tenth the damage of your main gun? Yes, backup weapons would be nice, but a glitter boy can carry those (what else are those arms for?), and better ones at that. All it seems to do is fill the page count with military boondoggles. I like typing boondoggle In any case, it has fancy sensors, storage space, and a distress beacon.  The bold NGR strategy: drop their guys without any support into the middle of a monster-ridden region! This is clearly the best plan ever. And no, they're not flying nearly high enough to need pressure suits. Also their armor is already pressurized! Next: Mighty robots, mighty vehicles: the robot vehicles of Triax.
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Oct 7, 2013 13:11
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I don't think you can take MDC damage for falling anyway can you? They're just wasting silk and money. And only sending in two robots when that plane can clearly carry five--but then it wouldn't be a buddy-powerarmor comic I guess.
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Oct 7, 2013 17:02
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You'd probably take like 1d4 at worst, given the anemic melee damage that battlesuits and giant robots have always had under Palladium. How much of that energy would be transferred to the pilot is another question.
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Oct 7, 2013 17:10
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occamsnailfile posted:I don't think you can take MDC damage for falling anyway can you? They're just wasting silk and money. And only sending in two robots when that plane can clearly carry five--but then it wouldn't be a buddy-powerarmor comic I guess.
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Oct 7, 2013 17:10
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Well. It's a bit more complicated than all that. occamsnailfile wins, but MadScientistWorking is very close - just not for any sensible reason you'd expect. A human in M.D.C. armor or power armor takes the following damage: "Fall: One point of S.D.C. or Hit Point damage for every 10 feet (3m) height from a fall." Note that there's no mention of terminal velocity. If a GM is kind, terminal velocity could be applied and the damage would cap from 100-200 S.D.C., enough to pulp all but the hardiest of humans. Most paradrops like that would be well over 2000 feet, so if terminal velocity isn't applied (by a strict reading of the rules), you're looking at 200+ S.D.C. damage. However! The Triax X-535 Hunter pictured is 12' tall, which gives it roughly the minimum height to be considered a robot vehicle, not a suit of power armor. That extra 2' feet of height thus means the falling rules no longer apply, and as such our NGR pilots would be rattled around but left entirely unharmed. There are no rules for trying to land on your feet; a kind GM, once again, might offer a Sense of Balance check (if the robot pilot happens to be gymnast; they can never learn acrobatics, however) to land on their feet dramatically. 
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Oct 7, 2013 18:21
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Fossilized Rappy posted:Does this mean I can snipe Pathfinder Bestiary 2 through 4 from you after I'm done with The Game Mechanics' supplements? I haven't really had plans to do them or really intended to claim them, so it wouldn't be sniping at all! Feel free to do Pathfinder stuff, I may return to it someday, but after doing the core it just feels like anything I would have to add would just just be beating on a dead horse. Certainly, you'd be better off doing the later Bestiaries, because there's more original creatures to comment on rather than my original misery of "gently caress, what do I say about owlbears that hasn't been said?"
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Oct 7, 2013 19:02
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AccidentalHipster posted:John Wick's Eldritch High Okay: Nathan Westbury, Slytherin. Polite nerd who takes pride in that fact, knows he's out of place in Ye Olde House Of Rich Brats (he was Sorted there due to his ambitious perfectionism), prefers hanging out with Ravenclaw. Loves Arithmancy and Potions (as a subset of loving math), hates Transfiguration.
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Oct 7, 2013 19:40
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AccidentalHipster posted:John Wick's Eldritch High Make Tom Riddle aka Voldemort to see just how crazy/evil a character you can get away with and maybe Harry Potter to see how Wick treats people who are not DARK and EDGY.
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Oct 7, 2013 20:40
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Hello folks! This is my first FATAL & FRIENDS, but I hope it’ll go over well! d20 Modern Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook - Part 1  Released in November 2002, d20 Modern was built on the back of the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition ruleset. Designed by Bill Slaviscek (one of the Torg co-creators), Jeff Grubb, Rich Redman, and Charles Ryan, the system was meant to allow players to run games featuring anything from psychic X-Files investigators, to mecha-piloting tech savants, to post-apocalyptic paladins. While d20 Modern gets a lot of grief as a system (even a few posts up-thread), I feel like a lot of it is undeserved, depending on what you’re discussing. The core book is extremely well produced, on par with or better than the D&D core books, a big glossy hardcover with loads of decent art, and some of the stuff it does is strong. It suffers from being tied to the d20 system and its inherent flaws, and also from the volumes of associated mediocre to poor first- and third-party materials produced as part of the OGL strategy (which will be covered in later installments, probably). But let’s start with the core book! d20 Modern Roleplaying Game - Core Rulebook First and foremost, this thing is hefty, clocking in at a beefy 384 pages. It’s an all-in-one book, containing the fundamental game rules, character creation information, a fairly robust monster/villain/whatever section, a few options for settings flavour, and the ever-important 40+ pages of spells & spell-like powers. Introduction The book begins with an introductory section that hews closely to the standard established in the late 90s/early 2000s by White Wolf & Wizards. The designers establish this as their mission statement: ”d20 Modern Team” posted:The d20 Modern Roleplaying Game typifies cinematic action-adventure at its best, with the ability to throw in as much (or as little) fantasy as you see fit. With this game, you can craft a contemporary setting all your own, populated by evil villains and desperate situations that call for the very best your heroes have to offer. and it’s pretty accurate. They go to great lengths to include a lot of character options, story hook stuff, and the like. The rest of the introduction contains things like campaign arcs (supercops defending the city from an extremely violent gang war!) and character ideas (a brash stunt person, a grizzled trucker traveling the open highways), and describes the kinds of dice you’ll need to play out your own movie star thrust into a real-life role as a hero. It also introduces, in a basic fashion, the ‘default’ setting: Department-7, an “elite organization that...deals with situations threatening the modern world.”  Swords! Guns! Super chiseled Asian babes! Wizards?!?! The Basics This is where the book launches into the nuts and bolts explanation of its mechanics. Since it’s based off 3rd Edition, the game uses the familiar d20+modifiers versus target number. Ties are counted as a success (a thing we could never remember when playing). The Basics section then gives general explanations of what characters (heroes) are made up of - ability scores (standard Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma), your class, level, skills and feats, and a system-specific starting occupation that confers a number of bonuses and represents whatever your character did before becoming a secret shadow government assassin. A Game Session This is a run-down of how the game is mechanically played - skill checks, ability checks, combat rounds, and the kinds of actions you can take (attack/move/full-round/free/reactions). Also explained here are action points - these give you the opportunity to add 1d6 to any d20 check, before knowing whether the result is a success or failure. They can also be spent to use certain powers, which will be noted later. The remainder of the Introduction deals with Playing the Game and its requisite example of actual play, where the intrepid heroes break up a group of ski-mask-wearing people going about their (until combat starts) unrelated business underneath a boardwalk. The intro closes with a character creation summary, and then it’s on to the Real Chapters! Up next: Characters! Archetypes! Talents! Multiclassing!
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Oct 7, 2013 22:53
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Triax T-C20 Terrain Hopper Power Armor About time someone mentioned this. I looked in the old thread to see if it came up, but never did. Yeah, it's a pretty blatant rip from anime and it's not the first: the Glitter Boy's Boom Gun supposedly came from the over the shoulder Smartgun of the Full-Armor ZZ Gundam from Gundam Sentinel.  Also, you wouldn't happen to have a larger copy of that Hardsuit image, would you?
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Oct 8, 2013 00:00
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Young Freud posted:Also, you wouldn't happen to have a larger copy of that Hardsuit image, would you?   Biggest one I've seen anyway, not sure what BGC2040 book it's from. Which reminds me, I should probably pull RTG's
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Oct 8, 2013 00:13
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Young Freud posted:About time someone mentioned this. I looked in the old thread to see if it came up, but never did. Yeah, it's a pretty blatant rip from anime and it's not the first: the Glitter Boy's Boom Gun supposedly came from the over the shoulder Smartgun of the Full-Armor ZZ Gundam from Gundam Sentinel. Yeah, it wasn't even part of the original review, but something I had planned as an extra, but I've decided to fold in some of Kevin's possible inspirations where I can fit them in (including the aforementioned Gundam). I'm probably going to do a "bonus" bit where I cover a few I've missed from earlier books as well. The more I looked, the more I found that were just really striking and blatant, but I'm sure there's a lot more I've missed, so feel free to mention anything it seems I'm overlooked as we jump into the robot vehicle section tomorrow. It's tough because I still think Long is pretty talented and one of the best artists Rifts had. I don't want to entirely dump on him, but the similarities are hard to ignore beyond a certain point. And surprisingly, though I often see the accusations bandied about, rarely is potential evidence brought up. Well, it's time to bring that evidence up. scissorman posted:Make Tom Riddle aka Voldemort to see just how crazy/evil a character you can get away with and maybe Harry Potter to see how Wick treats people who are not DARK and EDGY. Maybe it's just me, but I always felt Harry Potter was annoyingly grim and dire as it was. "Hey, we know your family is abusive and goes out of their way to make your suffer on every axis they can manage, but it's very important that you stay with them over summers because reasons-"
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Oct 8, 2013 00:43
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AccidentalHipster posted:EDIT: Super Special Awesome Audience Participation Time! I wanna show off just one of the many kicks to the nuts that this game gave to me. To simulate this, I want anybody in the thread who feels like it to throw out a character concept for me to make BEFORE I hit Character Creation. Nothing too complicated, just a few personality traits and talents with maybe what dorm they're in or a preferred type of magic for your little Harry Potter OC to swing about. Trust me, there's a good reason why I'm asking for this NOW. Martin Cranston, charismatic with a strong sense of morality. Skilled in Alchemy and "Holy magic." Also a a bit of a jock.
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Oct 8, 2013 00:51
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Potter is all over the place. He's poor, but he's rich, he can't spend any of that money, but someone mysteriously gets him poo poo like expensive broomsticks. His relatives are awful people, but at the same time they're trying their damnedest to keep him from getting killed in whatever horrible business his parents were involved with. And of course he can't just stay with the Weasleys, or board somewhere else, because that horrible Muggle world always has to be used as a nasty framing device.
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Oct 8, 2013 00:59
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Maybe it's just me, but I always felt Harry Potter was annoyingly grim and dire as it was. "Hey, we know your family is abusive and goes out of their way to make your suffer on every axis they can manage, but it's very important that you stay with them over summers because reasons-" Not only the really abusive relations Harry has to stay with, the whole wizard world seems crazy when you think about. I mean Hogwarts is pretty much one big safety hazard, you've got what are basically nazis who bribed their way to freedom running free, a prison that wouldn't look out of place in a third world country, all sorts of stuff. In that vein, AccidentalHipster, could you maybe elaborate on how Wick tries to make his setting more 'dark'? Is it just dark and edgy in the sense of goths with skulls, necromancy and all the other typical stuff writers like to add, maybe some sexual elements like in thread 'favorite' Cthulhutech?
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Oct 8, 2013 01:01
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Bieeardo posted:Potter is all over the place. He's poor, but he's rich, he can't spend any of that money, but someone mysteriously gets him poo poo like expensive broomsticks. His relatives are awful people, but at the same time they're trying their damnedest to keep him from getting killed in whatever horrible business his parents were involved with. And of course he can't just stay with the Weasleys, or board somewhere else, because that horrible Muggle world always has to be used as a nasty framing device. It's also a horrifying world if you think about it for a moment. The presence of ghosts would seem to contradict most of the major world religions. Overt mind-control is called a bad thing, but magic that modifies memories and emotions is commonplace and played for laughs. There are beings that eat souls, but no one seems particularly concerned about this beyond the prospect of it happening to anyone they actually know. A magic supervillain takes over the magic government of Britain, but the rest of the magic world apparently is content to leave Britain to rot. At its heart, it's escapist changeling fantasy meant for young adults, but Rowling paints a picture of a world that no one but the privileged elite, like Potter and his friends, would want to live in.
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Oct 8, 2013 01:08
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Also, the school for people who can kill you with little effort by waving a stick and saying funny words? Lacks any sort of "ethics" course; you'd think wand safety'd be an important thing; hell, even rednecks take gun safety courses!
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Oct 8, 2013 01:34
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Speaking of Hogwarts, let's talk about witches. Truly, they're the iconic Halloween creature. Ghosts? Pshaw. Skeletons? Please. Werewolves? Don't be ridiculous. As this is the month of Samhain (the true Halloween, for you ignorant plebes), let's peruse what is surely the spoooookiest book of the World of Darkness, and learn what true horrors witches are capable of. I speak, of course, of Tradition Book: Verbena But seriously, this is an awful, awful book. I got this a long while back, when I was first getting into World of Darkness stuff. A friend of mine saw this in a used bookstore and thought the cover looked cool. Seeing that it was a World of Darkness book, he got it for me, thinking I would like it. I did not. The book offers non-stop pretention, ridiculousness, and at times even offense. Aside from that, though, I consider it to be the most White Wolf book White Wolf ever put out. You could build a drinking game out of this thing, and you'd be hammered into unconsciousness. Now, I don’t know very much about Mage: the Ascension, other than the barebones elevator pitch. This isn’t going to be some exploration of the Mage cosmology and how the Verbena fit into it. I’m not going to be calling out random canon inconsistencies or thematic dissonance. This is much more of a “point and laugh” review, so let’s get to it.  Like I said, the cover is pretty good. The original Tradition Books were some of the best looking paperbacks that White Wolf was putting out at the time. You have some crazy dualist symbolism going on, and a tastefully worn cover. Don’t hold out much hope for the rest of the art. Unlike the Tribebooks, we head straight to the credits page. There are some really interesting things here that will explain a lot of what went wrong. Our old friend Nicky Rea is back on writing duties, and the author’s special thanks section credits Jackie Cassada as a proofreader, so once again we have a Rea-Cassada co-production. Also on the team were Sam Chupp and Lucien Dark. Chupp was mainly a bit contributor to collaborative projects, and this is Lucien Dark’s only writing credit. This does not inspire confidence. Also failing to lift my spirits is another curious special thanks credit. quote:The Wednesday night gaming group…for playing through the weeks of unAwakened mages without powers, which had so much to do with how this book was written. Yep! This book is going to follow the adventures of seven completely mundane pagan freaks. Instead of showing us the cool things Verbena can do, we’re just going to hang around with these losers and have people talk at us. Surely, the most engaging part of the Mage setting. You can tell that the Wednesday game was a struggle to get through, both by the tone of the sentence and the fact that the oWoD rules didn’t exactly support mortal PCs, so it really makes you wonder why that experience would be better as a book. To make things worse, every character you see here is going to be inspired by somebody’s dumb PCs, which means they’re all Mary Sues. All of them. But don’t take my word for it! Let’s meet the cast in the Prelude, Samhain Eve.  The most relatable character of the bunch. Deborah is introduced to us with her “black hair flying around her face.”  She’s hanging out with some guys named Thorn, Arion, and Tanith, having a staredown with an old lady. She’s pissed, but then she always is, since she’s a complete psychopath. That’ll become more apparent later, but for now, she was promised “ultimate power” (no really) by her weird pagan pals.The old lady, named Mother Celene, asks Deborah what she wants out of life. Her answer, that she wants money and power, is deemed too stupid and unimaginative, and so she starts shooting pain beams at her while ranting about how much of Deborah’s vital functions she can perceive. This is meant to convince Deborah to cooperate, I guess.  Silver Ladder: the early days Scene change! This guy is Teague, and he’s a ren faire enthusiast who is really good at the Celtic harp, magically good, in fact. In other words, he’s so good at LARPing that he gets actual magical powers. On top of that, he’s gay, and he has AIDS. He’s introduced getting almost raped on his way to the Ren Faire. He manages to bite one of his aggressors, and they then try to kill him. A wandering banshee shows up to save him by shouting really loudly. Turns out that this banshee had offered Teague the chance to learn real bardic magic, so he accepts. This is the most White Wolf character that has ever been written. There is one interesting exchange in Teague’s story. Teague tells his banshee friend that he shouldn’t handle his blood, since he has AIDS. The banshee replies that he doesn’t have to have AIDS. It opens up this real philosophical question about power. Obviously, given the choice, any of us would rather not have AIDS, but let’s say that as a wizard, you have the ability to get rid of all AIDS everywhere. It’s not necessarily easy, of course, but you could visit everybody with AIDS and cure them. Would you do it? Or would you choose not to? Of course, the book never explores this, it’s just a cheap throwaway line, but it’s at least a thought provoking one.  And people say Werewolf's about eco-terrorism. Next character! By the way, all of these stories are prefaced by an epigraph. I’m not reporting them because they’re all superficial and don’t have anything to do with the plot. This one, though, has Chief Seattle talking about how his tribe feels “the sap of the trees” and all of nature within them. It's a quiet statement of respect, not only for nature, but for humanity itself. The story's about an actual ecoterrorist, named Joe, planning to murder a bunch of workers. He’s the closest we have to a protagonist. He’s out in the woods, rigging spike traps on trees to stab workers, stalling the lumber project. As it turns out, the contractors are there with a security team that literally murders his partner. He runs away, naturally, but is rescued by Jarrol, another mage, who kills the security team. Truly, these are a wise, peace loving people.  She's just upset that she has to wear a fanny pack. Our next character is Kamaria, adopted into a monastery from her African village. No other geographical details than that, mind you, she’s from a tribal African village. This village hates and fears people with deformities, and because Kamaria was born a humpback, the monastery had to take her in. Even though they treat her with great love and care, Kamaria can tell they hate her. It’s possible this is nuanced characterization, since Kamaria has horrible self-esteem, but it could also dumb anti-church nonsense. I’ll reserve judgment. A mentor shows up for Kamaria as she’s gazing into a pool, wishing she could shapeshift into something more beautiful. The two talk a bit about the moon. (Kamaria makes a “Halloween wish” to her “Sister, Moon”. I don’t know if that’s a thing, but I’m guessing not.) Then they leave. She’ll be more developed later, since she’s our love interest. Every splat book needs a good love interest, said nobody ever.  Tragically, he can heal everything except for his own eyes. Next up is Takoda, a Native American. No tribe, he’s just Native American. That aside, this is probably one of the best of these snippets. It’s probably written by Rea and Cassada, since their entire milieu is about Native American mysticism and issues. This one trends more to the “issues” side, and it gives a great rundown about how all the tourists visiting the tribe are appropriating native culture and cheapening it in the process. It’s basic, but at least he’s not killing anybody or getting raped for the crime of having AIDS. In any case, Takoda was training to become a shaman, but he couldn’t get any visions, so he took up medicine, which is actually kind of interesting. He witnesses a car accident, and helps someone he took to be a tourist save the people inside. She promises to teach him magic, and she accepts. The story’s alright, but Takoda’s dialogue in the book proper is one of the worst things about it, so it’s dragged down. The next story brings us another relevant epigraph. quote:God is alive. Magic is afoot… But it doesn’t bode well. The story itself is about a sheltered Christian girl named Aileen. Her friend was raped and murdered, and she’s feeling sad about it. She doesn’t think her family is though, and that upsets her. In fact, she’s beginning to doubt the existence of a loving God! She wanders around a little bit, and she accidentally joins a Wiccan celebration, as you do. Stargazer (yes), the priestess, invites her to come back some time, and Aileen thinks about it. On the way home, though, she sees a suspicious looking guy on the road, so she does the logical thing for someone who knew someone who was kidnapped and accepts a ride from a complete stranger. Turns out this guy killed her friend! Who woulda thunk it? Ironically, she trusted the guy because he had braces, but later remembered that literally the only distinguishing clue the police found regarding her friend’s murderer was that he wore braces. To escape, she bites off the guy’s hand.  The story is redeemed. She runs home, bursting in on her parents during a get-together, and goes to the bathroom. Her mother chases her down and yells at her for having embarrassed him and looking like a lunatic. Obviously, this isn’t okay, but I would be freaked out too if my daughter came home looking like she had eaten someone. She decides that she’s going to own her Lunatic label, and become Moon Knight! Or a Wiccan, that works too.Next time: You wake up in a dark room. You’re bound, gagged, and naked. What do you do? pospysyl fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Oct 8, 2013 |
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Oct 8, 2013 02:08
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scissorman posted:Yeah, not only Voldemort and his minions, some of the background stuff is also pretty hosed up, especially for what's essentially a series aimed at children/young adults. Yeah, Harry Potter is pretty grimdark under the surface, but so is most children's fiction when you stop and think about it. Thankfully the only Wickdark in Eldritch High (so far) is just vague hints of Warhammer Chaos beings that tell people to murder their spouses and Circe's is apparently fighting it by having kung fu black ops wisk magic sensitive kids and their families away to a weird extra-dimensional academy so that they can train the kids to be magical soldiers. Now that I think about it, that's actually some Evangelion child soldier poo poo right there. At least sex hasn't been brought up! Yet. On a happier note, Robotic Age made its funding goal  and Bobbin Threadbare is done telling me about Symphony X, so you know what that means. Time for moreJohn Wick's Eldritch High PART 2: MAKING A CHARACTER Ormagoden help us all. Now I want to take a moment to talk about the art of this game. Namely, how lazy it is. This book lists *glances at credits* Jessica Kauspedas as being responsible for "Graphics and Illustration" and she must have had a real cushy position because the only thing that qualifies as "Graphics and Illustration" is the cover, the Harry Potter lightning bolt font used on it and in the inner cover, and the occasional blob-ish iPod Silhouette that is supposed to represent students. So if you want a more picture intensive review, draw something yourself. I'm sure you'll do a better job than Jessica. Character Creation is pretty much where this system starts to stomp on your hopes of playing a fun, flexible Harry Potter storygame. To show this, I'll be making characters suggested by *checks the thread* Comrade Koba, Angrymog, and Xelkelvos. Roll up your sleeves folks, this one is going to be stupid. First is "Step 1: Who Are You?" asking "Where Are You From", "When Did You Gain Sight?", "What Do You Look Like?", and "What is Your Stereotype?". They're all pretty straightforward so I'm gonna skip them. Step 2 is just as simple, just give yourself 3 Willpower (which is not yet defined). Step 3 carries on similarly by stating you have 1 "Fumble" (which is never defined ). Am I the only one who thinks that these steps could stand to be stuffed in a "Finishing Touches" stuffed at the end?Anyway, "Step 4: Required Courses" is where thing start getting stupid. This step is includes a list of the non-dark magic types in the game (I'll get to the Dark Magic later) and each one has a thing it can do and a limitation. There's Alchemy, which which lets you talk to and manipulate the 4 classical elements but requires drinking a drop of mercury with no mention of the wizard in question being immune to mercury poisoning. Question, WHY WOULD YOU FORCE CHARACTERS TO DRINK POISON AND NOT INCLUDE MAGICAL IMMUNITY TO IT?!? I'll… I'll just pretend that wizards are immune to mercury poisoning because unlike Wick I don't hate my players. Moving on, Bewitchment let's you hypnotize people but requires eye contact and spoken orders. Conjuration lets you summon an existing object in to your palm but requires you to close you eyes and cover the hand you're conjuring with. There's no mention of item size limits so presumably you can summon canisters of chlorine triflouride a la The Mage Your Mage Could Cast Like from Daeren's review of Changing Breeds. Crafts is just making magic items like potions and +4 Daggers. Divination let's you declare details about what's going on but requires you to use a divination tool like a tarot deck. Shape Shifting (that can't be the right spelling) let's you turn in to animals but… actually, this school doesn't even have any implied requirements. Lastly, Wards let's you prevent certain things from touching anything you ward but requires you to draw a circle.Wow, that's a lot of  but what do we actually DO in this step? Nothing! This step is just here to act as a pseudo-spell list! "Step 5: Electives" is pretty much the same but with mundane skills and like far too many bad Wick games is way too specific for the amount of points you get. There are 17 so I'll just go over a few notable ones. Arcane Athletics is just run, jump, dodge but with a randomly "wizardy" name. Herbology is what it sounds like and for some reason isn't part of Crafts so I guess you never use magic plants for brewing potions. History is pretty normal but the description… quote:History Those ellipses are so I want to punch them in the face. Semiotics is even worse. Just lookquote:No, not “symbology.” And if you use it again, it will come off your final grade. The study of symbols, myth and epic can help students understnd (sic) the strange symbolic reality of the Shadowrealm as well as the more cryptic curiosities of our own world. Goddammit Wick, can't you go 5 paragraphs without being ? I actually looked up semiotics and according to Wikipedia it's (if I may make a long story short) the study of symbols like Jesus fishes and the letter Q. This means that Wick couldn't stop insulting PAYING CUSTOMERS (yes, I'm still bitter about the ) over semantics to realize that his "innovative" way of jazzing up the demon lore skill isn't smart, it's just confusing. So he's basically being Wick. Other noteworthy skills include Creative Writing which helps you lie because you're so creative, Theater which lets you disguise yourself and is separate from lying because. Fine Arts and Music are separate for the same reason. Then there's Spywork. Spywork needs to be seen to be believed.quote:Spywork That's right, this Course has ZERO DESCRIPTION OF WHAT YOU LEARN! There's no mention of Math or Science and nothing to actually do at this step so that's ANOTHER for the counter."Step 6: Your Freshman Schedule" is where you finally pick your Courses and where the true feelings of "I wasted my money" starts to set in. You pick three Required Courses and one Elective. You do this a second time during your second semester and may not take a course for more than one semester per year. This gives you 6 magical "skills" and 2 mundane "skills" per year which means that everyone ends up as a magical "jack" with pretty much zero mundane competence. I'm skipping ahead a bit to Shadow Watch characters because they're built pretty much the same way except they only have one required course which is pretty much anti-magic with Wire-Fu but get 3 Electives per semester for a total of 6 six "skills" per year. I heard that Wick builds his games around his group and then just packages it in ego stroking before selling it. If this is the case, then apparently John-boy's players were all either wizard supremacy grognards or A Certain Magical Index fans because by the end of Freshman year every character is going to end up as either a samey wizard jack-of-all-trades or a magic breaking badass normal. This also means that if you want to customize you character in any real way, you can't use magic! "Step 7: Prodigy" tries to fix the "magic jack" problem by giving you a +1 bonus to one school which means gently caress all so let's move on. "Step 8: Gifts" is a list of special advantages that range from having elvish blood (no mention of what kind of elves are in this setting, so I'm assuming they work for Santa), to being able to speak to animals, to being French. Wait, what? quote:French I'd talk about how Wick seems to have started to  Europe the same way he Japan, but I need to ask a more pressing question. HOW DOES BEING FRENCH MAKE YOU BETTER AT MAGIC BASED ON RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY?!? The other Gifts aren't much better thought out because Lucky gets rid of that Fumble you picked up in Step 3 (and Fumbles do nothing) and Warlock Taint gives you 1 Rank in a Dark Art (special forbidden magical Course called Dark Magic everywhere else in the book) and 1 Warlock Point (part of a corruption mechanic that's called Dark Magic Points or just Dark Points everywhere else in the book). Editing! That's the last step of character creation. Can you notice what they forgot to mention? That's right, they forgot to make you pick your dorm! I'll just add it to Step 1, count that as another , and move on to making the sample characters.Let's start with Comrade Koba posted:Castella D'Agincourt, Deceitful Necromancy Major and Secret Student of the Forbidden Arts He notes down his dorm, nation, stereotype, etc. (Fogg Hall, Spain, "Bad Boy", and so on) and starts picking his courses. For Required he wonders why he can't just load up on Necromancy before he caves in and picks up Bewitchment so that he can get away with anything, Conjuration so that he can steal anything, and Divination so that he can learn The Forbidden Arts on his lonesome. For his Elective he just goes for Creative Writing for the lying and leaves it at that. For Prodigy, he chooses Necromancy because he wants zombies dammit! Gift is simple since Warlock Taint is the only way to get Necromancy at Character Creation. Our Bad Boy is done and all it took was a bunch of unnecessary spell bloat! Next up we have Angrymog posted:Daisy Moonchild Jones She'll be attending Hinrichs Hall and taking "hippie" as her Stereotype. For Required Courses she picks Crafts for Potion making, and after some consideration, decides on Alchemy and Divination because they seem "hippie-ish". Electives are more of a pain because she wants more than just one. After deliberating for hours she eventually settles on Herbology. For Prodigy she picks Crafts and for Gift she considers Warlock Taint to impress Castella but decides on Beast Tongue (talk to animals) and resolves to learn Dark Arts later. That's another character done and we're 2 for 2 on Freshmen Schedule leaving our capabilities both bloated and anemic. And lastly Xelkelvos posted:Martin Cranston, charismatic with a strong sense of morality. Skilled in Alchemy and "Holy magic." Also a a bit of a jock. Marty has easy picks for Step 1. He's in Savage Hall, and his stereotype is Jock. Courses become an immediate again because of strict options. He picks Alchemy right away and then decide on Crafts after he's told the Alchemy is Elementalism and Crafts is Alchemy because. After trying to figure out something to be "holy" he settles on Wards. Electives are painful again because he wants at least 4 of them (Arcane Athletics, Psychology, Public Speaking, and Wrestling). That's 3 for 3 that we've had this exact same problem and these are actually less problematic than they could be. If I was was gonna stat out our good friend Harry Potter I'd want to give him Arcane Athletics (quidditch), Creative Writing (for lying), Crypto Zoology (Care of Magical Creatures), Games & Puzzles (clever solutions to problems), Psychology (persuading people), Public Speaking (born leader), Spywork (sneaking? this elective is really poorly explained), and Weapons (Sword of Motherfucking Gryffindor). That's 8 electives. Harry gets 1. This is what I mean by crushing dreams. Better systems actually adjust how specific skills are to how "crunchy" the games is and hands them out in appropriate amounts. Eldritch High gives you the finger.  Anyway, Martin goes with Public Speaking for his elective, Alchemy for his Prodigy, and Giant Blood (bonuses to being strong) for his Gift because I don't care anymore.Goddammit this chapter sucks. It is one of the biggest problems I have with the game and it's the one of the core elements! And it's STILL not the most rear end-ramming failure of game design this book has to offer. I need a loving Let's Play break. total: 4 (2 this chapter) total: 12 (9! this chapter)Pages read: 11/34 Next time, GAME MECHANICS! or Wick feels like dicking around with cards AND dice As for everyone who submitted a character, thank you for participating and I'm sorry if I didn't use your idea. EDIT: And thanks to everyone in the thread who read my post more closely than I did. That'll teach me to post when I'm half awake. AccidentalHipster fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Oct 17, 2013 |
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Oct 8, 2013 02:18
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