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Alien Rope Burn posted:Tough Love: poo poo, I have no idea how to do that. I will research how we would go about doing this after work. We do make them downloadable as zip files of course, but if we have a way to get onto a real distribution system we certainly will take advantage of it.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:45
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Tough Love: Yeah, I listen at my work's Wi-Fi, so I have to stay at the front, but now I've done all the front jobs. DLing is currently not an option, since I have no internet currently at home and my tablet doesn't open zip files.
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Jun 17, 2014 23:33
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Good information all around. I'll read up on Stitcher tonight, while hoping that they are free.
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Jun 17, 2014 23:37
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iTunes has a pretty simple process, at least.
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Jun 17, 2014 23:55
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 Its all instinct and game until someone loses an opposable digit- the Beasts Each Seeming gets its own four-page spread, in a lime-forest-ivy green background and a drop-shadow symbol to go with the scare-font title. This big-budget treatment of what is traditionally just another paragraph in other systems makes the following twenty-four pages into something you revisit for inspiration and guidance, again and again and again. The section starts with a fairy tale to describe the mindset of the Beasts. But it isn't a cliche 'darker version of the Grimm classic' that tries to make the fae 'cool'. By inference and re-framing of the major beats through the game's conceits, the story becomes one of horror one that you'd never take part. Beasts plum the werewolf thing pretty hard- pulled between two worlds, native in neither etc etc. But instead of American South revanchism combined with noble savage orientalism, you're just trying to live your life as the seeming that "had the most difficult road back through the Hedge"1. I feel that the gameplay benefits from the de-emphasis of the alpha-ego culture. Another reason the game differs from Werewolf is that players are allowed to pull from the entire Darwin catalog. Fish to fowl, prey to predator, every snowflake is permitted. Of course it is a good idea to reward players who draw from more mythic origins, but in a game of odd people there isn't much reason to limit them by anything but mechanics. Beasts gain 8-agains with Animal-Ken, and a free spec in a single species (typically the one they most represent, but interesting concepts exist with parasite-host and herd-shepherd dynamics). To further empower the Beasts as social creatures, they may also spend glamour on non-Manipulation social attribute pools2. The curse is significant, if not something you can easily build around, of simply not being good at using skills in the mental part of the game. Beast Doctors and such exist, but you'll be annoyed when it comes up. Then you get a eight-person line-up with the kiths shown. Beast kiths, to make up for the fact that each one is already appealing to the cat-ear crowd, are pretty lame.3 A list Kiths and their blessing:
And the stereotypes list is magical, and you should go out of your way to find them. THE SHADOW KNOWS 1 - Hint: every seeming thinks that it had it the hardest 2 - If it wasn't for the fact that glamour was the single easiest fuel to gather and store, I'd say this special ability is completely underpowered. As is, I'd say its not as impactful unless you have a pass/fail that requires a single roll, such as detection or seduction. 3 - The story of the seeming. Built-in appeal means less mechanical 'love' to otherwise drive nerds to them.
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Jun 18, 2014 02:14
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Right, we are on it. We just need to get that logo created and then go back and clean up some old episodes. Then I'll let people know if and when itunes approves it.
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Jun 18, 2014 03:08
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Tough Love: I use PocketCasts, and never have a problem. I'm pretty sure you can search for the podcast name or just paste the XML feed link into it.
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Jun 18, 2014 03:12
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theironjef posted:Dream Park, added to the list. What got to me is that the rules seemed to lay where they fell after being chased across the pages by the bad art. More games need to do what Mortal Coil does(I think Burning Wheel might do as well) and tack on a page or two rule summary at the end of each chapter. It makes everything immensely easier.
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Jun 18, 2014 03:16
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Evil Mastermind posted:I use PocketCasts, and never have a problem. I'm pretty sure you can search for the podcast name or just paste the XML feed link into it. I do this (so I can test them) on Podkicker on my various android junk. Same deal, I just post in the RSS feed into the manual search part. Still, I need to get us into the big leagues with all the other garagecasts out there someday. Tasoth posted:What got to me is that the rules seemed to lay where they fell after being chased across the pages by the bad art. More games need to do what Mortal Coil does(I think Burning Wheel might do as well) and tack on a page or two rule summary at the end of each chapter. It makes everything immensely easier. I think you're on page 42 or so before you even encounter a rule, and yeah, the section of this book that has rules on it is so dense with prose that it took a good fifty pages more before I figured out all the ways you're supposed to spend character creation points.
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Jun 18, 2014 05:52
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That's roughly why I dropped out of the Chuubo KS early on. One of the early updates was couched in some impenetrable, long-winded metaphor about tomatoes and trellises, and the thought that might have been representative of the game's presentation made me reach for the eject button.
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Jun 18, 2014 06:05
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Bieeardo posted:That's roughly why I dropped out of the Chuubo KS early on. One of the early updates was couched in some impenetrable, long-winded metaphor about tomatoes and trellises, and the thought that might have been representative of the game's presentation made me reach for the eject button. This is why I'm no particular fan of Jenna Moran's; RPGNet even coined a word a long while back to describe people able to actually understand her writing.
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Jun 18, 2014 08:17
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I won't pretend that Nobilis 3E isn't still a little too whimsical for its own good, but it is definitely much more accessible. (And it's a better system, I think.) I hear Chuubo's as a project was meant to be even more "down-to-earth."
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Jun 18, 2014 08:21
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The key to borgstromancy is to take everything completely literally. If you assume things are metaphors then you'll get hopelessly confused.
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Jun 18, 2014 10:06
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I'll keep that in mind if I manage to find copies on the cheap, because whatever else I do think the concepts she's presenting are really nifty.
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Jun 18, 2014 12:37
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Bieeardo posted:I'll keep that in mind if I manage to find copies on the cheap, because whatever else I do think the concepts she's presenting are really nifty. I've got a copy of Nobilis 2e that I cracked open like twice. PM me if you're interested.
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Jun 18, 2014 15:59
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Jenna Moran is a fairly neat but difficult writer, who indeed could use better presentation (and trimming of some of the excessive details in her rule systems). I find her entertaining to read, but I think I probably have that 'borgstromancy' skill you're talking about. Basically, her writing takes a lot of weird ideas and metaphors and whatnot in odd and literal directions. Because you're the embodiment of the sun, you can do sun things like devouring abstract concepts, embodying hope, having parts of yourself reflect your mood (those parts just happens to be things like sunbeams and whatnot), and so on. Or to give another example, because this guy's literally heartless he can, while he's in darkness, ignore chest wounds and blood loss, recover from any wound every once in a while, and act with heartless perfection. I enjoy that kind of  , but it's not for everyone, really.
Kaja Rainbow fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 17:08
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Meanwhile, layout just sent back the first 134 pages of the new Nobilis 2e PDF yesterday.
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Jun 18, 2014 19:59
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In the comments for Cthulhutech I suggested Weapons of the Gods/Legends of the Wulin because it's a better implementation of rolling dice for matching sets, but the Secret Arts and Chi Conditions in WotG were also written by Borgstrom. Go figure, it's a system with really cool ideas that does a poor job of explaining clearly how it all works. They had to put out a free PDF just to explain in simpler terms how the mechanics actually function. Thankfully, they cleaned it up a lot for Wulin (and she didn't write a single word in that book) and it's a good thing they did since that whole subsystem is a lot more central to the game now.
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Jun 18, 2014 22:38
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I would've posted yesterday, but my body just crashed for some reason. Part 3: Rules Well, it's only taken about a third of the book, but we're finally learning how to play the game!  Roll 3d6, add the relevant Stat and any modifiers from your Abilities, see if you get the Target Number or higher. The TN ranges from 4 to 34; the higher the number, the more difficult the task. 17 is the halfway point if you want something reasonably difficult, but the GM is advised to wing it and not stress too much about it. Conflict Resolution e.g. running away from a monster, then the player and GM choose the relevant Stat and adding Ability mods for PC and monster respectively and roll. Whoever's highest wins, check the Stats for both on a tie. If the numbers are identical, just reroll until somebody gets a higher. Meddling Kids posted:Ever watch a chase scene in a cartoon that seems to go on so long that you notice that the background keeps repeating itself? That’s what’s happening in the game! Just as it can be funny in a cartoon, you’ll find that this kind of situation can be very, very funny in a game. Not sure I'd describe having to reroll for the same thing a few times "funny", but kudos to them for trying to keep things thematic.  The game then talks about getting Bonked. See, if a character is hit for more damage than they have HP then you're knocked out, or Bonked, for as many minutes as the damage went over your HP i.e. If your Sidekick was hit for 7 damage, and you had a 4 in Health, then the Sidekick is Bonked for 3 minutes. Meddling Kids posted:The GM can decide whether those minutes are real time or game time.  Every 10 feet of falling is equal to 1d6 worth of damage, so I guess a particularly unsubtle GM can throw 20ft cliffs to railroad his players. To hit somebody with, say, a smelly fish (hey, that's the example given) then the hitter and one about to get the fear of cod beaten into them both roll Moves. Whoever gets the highest roll wins; if the guy weaponising the fish wins, then he batters the other guy for his Strength+1d6. There's no weapon list, but the book does say that you can house rule any rule you like.  I really love the art in this book. The artist here is Brian LaFramboise, who sadly appears to have retired.  The game discourages you from just smacking everything that looks at you funny. For one thing, violence isn't always the best answer. For another, it's not like Mystery Inc went around kneecapping the likes of Miner Forty-Niner or The Spooky Space Kook. There's one thing they did do: set traps! That's right, we're going old-school!  A trap's Target Number is the sum of a monster's Health and Strength (the book mentions a werewolf, who has 8 in both) which I guess is given to the players so they at least know what they're aiming for - the book isn't clear on this. A trap can be as elegant or as complicated as the players want, but it has to have several steps to it - each step adds 1 to your roll. However, the steps a PC can have to their trap is only equal to their Smarts. The Clique can work together to make the trap, which means that you can take the PC with the highest Smarts (let's say it's 10), and add 1 - that's the number of steps you can have in your trap. But that doesn't mean you can just say that your trap has 11 steps, the trap has to actually make sense at every stage. Realistically, that means that your trap probably won't have the maximum amount of steps. Either way, you roll 2d6 and add the result to the number of steps in your trap. There's even an example of play! Meddling Kids posted:Clutch and Andrea have come up with a trap that has Clutch finding the Werewolf and getting him to chase him (step one), leading to a  If your trap succeeds, it's time to call the police and see just who's really behind all this. If your trap doesn't work, you'll just have to use a completely different trap - the monster won't fall for the same trick twice. Now, for Optional Rules! Kid Points: At the start of the game, the GM rolls 2d6 - the result determines how many Kid Points you'll have (I think you have to do this at the start of every session, the game isn't clear on this). You can add Kid Points onto a roll, with one Kid Point per actual point. However, you can't use them for your own rolls, and you can't even hint that you want another player to give you Kid Points. The idea is that everyone is paying attention to what everyone else is doing and working together. Of course, you have to actually tell the GM you're using a Kid Point - when they're gone, they're gone. Chase Scenes: When players see a monster, make them roll for their Smarts (lower the TN the more they see it). If they flub the roll, the chase is on! Now players can use their Abilities (we will be getting to them, I promise) to outsmart the monster; think of all the times Shaggy and Scooby gave the monster a facial or something similar. The player trying to do this rolls to beat the TN of 10 + the monster's Smarts. If they succeed, then they get away scot-free! Then the book goes into some things to bear in mind:
 This is just cute. Experience points goes from 1-4 points, with 1 being "You sort of helped" and 4 being "Wow, I didn't see that one coming!", and the number given is for every player - nobody has to play catch-up. Abilities cost the same levelling up as they do in chargen, except you can hoard them for the good stuff now, but upgrading Stats costs more; 5 times the current Stat level (so getting from 4 Heart to 5 costs 20, and going from 5 to 6 costs 25). Wild Cards get half the experience points The Clique got, rounded up. Next time: The Dragon's Eye! In the meantime, would anybody like to think of a trap to catch Ziagnork the alien? His Strength is 3 and his Health is 5, meaning the TN for his trap is 8.
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Jun 19, 2014 02:20
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ThisIsNoZaku posted:This is why I'm no particular fan of Jenna Moran's; RPGNet even coined a word a long while back to describe people able to actually understand her writing. English majors? People who prefer words to numbers? So much of the hobby is charts and graphs; let the rest of us have our gorgeous, flowery prose. That's what fantasy was in the Lord Dunsany days before Tolkien and Gygax came along. And stop trying to 'understand' everything. Experience it. Nobilis set my brain on fire like nothing since Unknown Armies and Exalted's Shaping Combat is how I see the world sometimes - it's a narrative that we tell ourselves.
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Jun 19, 2014 03:13
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Count Chocula posted:Nobilis set my brain on fire like nothing since Unknown Armies and Exalted's Shaping Combat is how I see the world sometimes - it's a narrative that we tell ourselves. Not the world's most ringing endorsement.
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Jun 19, 2014 03:37
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Also geez get some forums chemo already, yuck. A while ago, I threatened to show off Stuporpowers!, the beeriest and pretzelliest super-RPG ever made. I'm running scans of my physical copy right now, but it's a pain in the rear end. I might just pick up the .pdf and save us all the trouble.
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Jun 19, 2014 03:40
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Is that the one with 'ballistic spooge' as a power?
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Jun 19, 2014 04:23
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Count Chocula posted:English majors? People who prefer words to numbers? So much of the hobby is charts and graphs; let the rest of us have our gorgeous, flowery prose. That's what fantasy was in the Lord Dunsany days before Tolkien and Gygax came along. And stop trying to 'understand' everything. Experience it. Man, I have a degree in literature and I do not begrudge someone some flowery prose but Nobilis took that poo poo right over the top. Also, it's a game not a book or a movie, I kind of need to understand it. If all I do is "experience" the book and then one of my players asks me how a specific mechanic works I can't just tell him to relax and let the experience of not knowing what the gently caress you're doing wash over him. It's fine to give me all the foofy, flowery poetic stuff when you describe your setting or the characters or things like that but when it comes time to tell how the actual mechanics of a game works I don't want it to read like Bjork telling me about a dream she once had.
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Jun 19, 2014 04:32
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Relax man, I hear she just took on the project to write a 4th edition of Skyrealms.
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Jun 19, 2014 05:38
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Moran writing a book set in Jorune and using the Star Fleet system would be the perfect storm of bullshit to make me go insane.
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Jun 19, 2014 06:07
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Grnegsnspm posted:Moran writing a book set in Jorune and using the Star Fleet system would be the perfect storm of bullshit to make me go insane. What is the tricode for having a condrij take a swing at an Excrucian, anyway? I know the whole practice is known as the epiphyllum doctrine, at least.
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Jun 19, 2014 06:20
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Grnegsnspm posted:Man, I have a degree in literature and I do not begrudge someone some flowery prose but Nobilis took that poo poo right over the top. Also, it's a game not a book or a movie, I kind of need to understand it. If all I do is "experience" the book and then one of my players asks me how a specific mechanic works I can't just tell him to relax and let the experience of not knowing what the gently caress you're doing wash over him. It's fine to give me all the foofy, flowery poetic stuff when you describe your setting or the characters or things like that but when it comes time to tell how the actual mechanics of a game works I don't want it to read like Bjork telling me about a dream she once had. In one of the FATAL & Friends threads I think I defended and explained Shaping Combat just based on the summary in the thread. Just think in terms of narrative and symbol.
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Jun 19, 2014 07:11
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It's funny because I'm sure someone somewhere has made the same argument about The Everlasting: Book of the Unliving before. "No man, you just have to think in terms of narrative and symbols. And candles, lots of loving candles. No, more than that, more candles. Yeah, there you go. Now we're ready for some Legendmaking."
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Jun 19, 2014 07:51
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If a dude says you just have to think harder at a thing while also admitting his real life thinking has been altered by reading elfgames you can probably assume his advice won't help that much.
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Jun 19, 2014 08:26
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2nd Ed was definitely more fun to read, but 3rd Ed is much better at explaining how it wants to be played. I also like what they did with Hell for 3rd Ed, it's a very novel idea.
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Jun 19, 2014 12:36
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I won't be updating on Meddling Kids today, as real life's just too drat busy right now. How's everybody been finding my write-up?JohnnyCanuck posted:A while ago, I threatened to show off Stuporpowers!, the beeriest and pretzelliest super-RPG ever made. I'm running scans of my physical copy right now, but it's a pain in the rear end. I might just pick up the .pdf and save us all the trouble.   I love Stuporpowers! so drat much; doesn't hurt that I was introduced to it at a con with the most adorably insane GM running it...
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Jun 19, 2014 13:30
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Been enjoying it so far. Makes for an interesting kids first RPG, at least.
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Jun 19, 2014 13:46
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I'm liking Meddling Kids. Fairly simple, without being condescending, and that Rube Goldberg trap system is really clever.
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Jun 19, 2014 14:32
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Did the artist ever do any of those "How to Draw..." books? His name and style look familiar (even if it's a deliberately simple style.) I'm not much of a Scooby Doo fan, but Meddling Kids looks like something that would be fun to run for kids. Then add in more Dark Heresy until the lines blur and Daphne becomes a psyker.
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Jun 19, 2014 19:07
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ZorajitZorajit posted:Did the artist ever do any of those "How to Draw..." books? His name and style look familiar (even if it's a deliberately simple style.) I'm not much of a Scooby Doo fan, but Meddling Kids looks like something that would be fun to run for kids. Then add in more Dark Heresy until the lines blur and Daphne becomes a psyker. Ahem, Daphne would be Sororitas, along with Techpriest Velma and Arbiter Fred. It would be Shaggy who would be the Psyker, just so we can say that Scooby is the Daemon that lives in his head.
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Jun 19, 2014 23:58
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Kai Tave posted:It's funny because I'm sure someone somewhere has made the same argument about The Everlasting: Book of the Unliving before. "No man, you just have to think in terms of narrative and symbols. And candles, lots of loving candles. No, more than that, more candles. Yeah, there you go. Now we're ready for some Legendmaking." Except Borgtrom has original ideas and expresses them in a cool way, which Everlasting didn't have. If people can defend Phoenix Command's lists of charts, I can defend the opposite extreme. And the strategy of viewing life in terms of narrative long predates Elfgames. See Ulysses or situationist psychogeography. It's a fertile ground for gaming.
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Jun 20, 2014 01:31
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hectorgrey posted:Been enjoying it so far. Makes for an interesting kids first RPG, at least. Certainly is, and it turns out I was wrong to call it the first RPG specifically aimed at kids; Phil Masters made a free RPG based on the "St Trinians" and "Molesworth" books way in 1994. It's not even the first commercially sold RPG aimed at kids - that honour, as far as I can tell, falls to The Pokémon Jr Adventure Game which predates Meddling Kids by 4 years. Bieeardo posted:I'm liking Meddling Kids. Fairly simple, without being condescending, and that Rube Goldberg trap system is really clever. It does ensure creativity from the players. I can come up with about three or four steps for a trap on my own, but I imagine it'd double with help from somebody else. ZorajitZorajit posted:Did the artist ever do any of those "How to Draw..." books? His name and style look familiar (even if it's a deliberately simple style.) I'm not much of a Scooby Doo fan, but Meddling Kids looks like something that would be fun to run for kids. Then add in more Dark Heresy until the lines blur and Daphne becomes a psyker. There isn't a lot I can find about Laframboise. He appears to have inked some indie comics, and apparently tried selling some prints through Zazzle, but gave that up when there was no money in it and retired. The other artists are Peter Delgado and Marcio Fiorito, who I think are now a graphic designer and comic book artist repsectively (there really isn't a lot to go on, even for Google).
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Jun 20, 2014 01:45
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Creepy crawling in my skin- the Darklings Just as nicely laid out as the previous member of the alphabetically ordered seemings, the Darklings have a vector-drawn maggot with bat wings (in comparison to a neo-pagan horned god of the Beasts). But to be honest, the Darklings are the 10th grade rushed homework of all the seemings. The typesize is almost 150% the size as it was before, and the column inches are occupied by much more art than text.1 And again to be honest, the Darklings are the least iconic seeming. Their unified 'shtick' is one of having dug too deep, and too greedily into that which should not be known. Rather than a unified shape or type, the Darklings are citizens of Tim Burton's halloween town. A pack of liars and scuttlers, they receive a blessing of being able to pump their stealth and subterfuge2, as well as 9-agains for the former and another attribute font for glamour (this time being Wits). But despite being a fairly underwhelming blessing, they have the least impactful curse, depending on the way a storyteller runs. As they are essentially born from the same twee mindspace as vampires, they have a comparable weakness to sunlight; but rather than being damaged, they are rather merely penalized at using magic during "daylight hours"3 and especially in view of the sun. Darkling kiths are, compared to Beasts, much more iconic and unique. Rather than trying to be a catch-all for any single creature on the planet, Darklings are leveraged into being interesting archetypes just by their kith:
Liars and cheats, to a soul. They get better in the later books, but in this book they're underwritten. Rockstars and wilting violets 1 - This is not unheard of for White Wolf to make a structural addition late into the design; in this, I'd call Darklings the Fate Arcana of C:tL 2 - Both of those skills are much more a critical binary than something like Composure, per se. With Wits being a go-to attribute, Darklings do quite well for themselves. 3 - Remember, time is nearly meaningless inside the hedge, soooooooo 4 - Ghosts don't develop as characters, they just move on Quantum Leap style. So you're only using them as a tools within a plot rather than as plot-devices in themselves.
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Jun 20, 2014 06:06
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Eldad Assarach posted:In the meantime, would anybody like to think of a trap to catch Ziagnork the alien? His Strength is 3 and his Health is 5, meaning the TN for his trap is 8. Ziagnork has been bothering the old air and space museum for who knows why. Reddy, Raphne, Relma, Raggy, and Rooby set out to catch him. Raggy and Rooby shout out that aliens smell bad, getting Z to chase them. Then they dash towards the flight simulators. Relma sprays the ground with cooking oil from the cafeteria greasetraps after Raggy and Rooby run by, making Z slip as he chases them. Z slides into a flight sim and Raphne closes the door and locks it. Reddy turns the sim on to 11, totally discombobulating Z. Rooby and Raggy collect a crashpad and parachutes from the 'be a paratrooper' activity center, and set up below the flight sim. Reddy opens the flight som hatch when the thing is upside down, dumping Z onto the crash pad, where Raggy and Rooby pull the ripcords on the parachutes and tangle up the evil ET. Commence calling the police and unmasking.
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Jun 20, 2014 17:28
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