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Xelkelvos
Dec 19, 2012

The Deleter posted:

Speaking of bad playbooks, it's time for the

Apocalypse World Third-Party Playbook Party

The simplicity, clarity and theme of Apocalypse World have inspired many people to make their own playbooks, spinoffs and variants on the game. Hell, when the game has a chapter exclusively dedicated to teaching you how to “hack” the game, its practically expected. And some of those hacks are great and successful - look at Dungeon World or Monsterhearts for proof.

Some, however, suck. The old 90% adage rings true when you look through the reams of fan-made playbooks for any of these games. People with more enthusiasm than design sense plug a bunch of ideas into the existing playbooks and call it a day, without thinking about how to tie things together or how it would play in context. We’ve seen his problem already with Skins for the Skinless, where the authors seem to have confused Monsterhearts with Dungeon World.

There’s plenty for Apocalypse World, and some are completely bonkers. I intend to go through a selection of them and talk about whether or not they work, and if I’d play with someone using them. I’ll go until either the forums or I get bored of it.

I'd love to see this done for Dungeon World content too eventually

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Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Xelkelvos posted:

I'd love to see this done for Dungeon World content too eventually

Be the change you want in the world.

I'm just messing with you, but, yeah, I'd love to see that done too.

ForkBanger
Jul 19, 2007


Have a placeholder title image.

Introduction
Transdimensional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles brings time travel and dimension hopping into the Palladium books, drawing much of it’s inspiration from the Mirage comics.

You see, time travel crops up in issue #8 of Mirage’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #8 in 1986, and introduces a bunch of concepts that are covered in this book- time travel, Time Lords, magic and techno-magical doodads. Dimension hopping pops up in the Donatello single-issue microseries that followed that issue of TMNT, and both concepts are later revisited (featuring some recurring characters) in the Tales of the Teenage Mutant Number Turtles series.

This time travel stuff is TMNT canon, is what I’m saying.

Being a Palladium game, it’s compatible with everything else in the line, so good news! Your ghostbusting Beyond the Supernatural chumps can go and fight dino-ghosts in the Jurassic. They won't win, of course, they're from Beyond the Supernatural.
The bad news is that you’ll have to wrestle the Palladium system into submission to do it.

Transdimensional TMNT is the seventh TMNT sourcebook, following on from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, After the Bomb, TMNT Adventures, Road Hogs, TMNT Guide to the Universe, and Mutants Down Under. It came out in 1989, 4 years after Back to the Future and 3 years after Mirage’s TMNT comics introduced time travel, and it was the last sourcebook in Palladium’s TMNT line. It was followed by two books of linked scenarios (Truckin’ Turtles, Turtles Go Hollywood), before production of new TMNT sourcebooks was stopped in 1991, and the license was finally dropped in 2001.

So, what’s in this thing?

Contents
In these 112 double-columned pages, we run through-
Creating Time-Traveller Mutant Animals
Mutant Humans
Mutant Hominids
Mutant Dinosaurs
New Time Travel Skills
An Explanation of Time Travel
NPC Time Lords
Wizard Magic
Time Lord Magic
Building Time Machines
Ancient Weapons
Black Powder Weapons
Ancient Gun Weapon Proficiencies
Summaries of Time Periods
Cross Dimensional Tables
Adventures
NPC Adversaries

The central concepts behind time travel in TMNT show up 32 pages into the book- and are heavily referenced in the preceding 27. the 5 pages before that are the title pages, contents and copyright notices. Why lay it out like this? Because all of the other Palladium books use the same layout, front loading the books with the 6 steps of character creation and the associated tables, before going into the actual subject matter. The constant back and forth of looking up weird new terms and slight confusion you’ll experience about very specific dates is just a price you’ll have to pay for consistent (terrible) presentation.

I’m going to start with the time travel part, as it introduces and explains a number of concepts and references the rest of the book depends upon.

After that, we’ll have a quick digression into wizards and magic, before returning to the start and looking at the new character options, before skipping onwards to catch up with ourselves and check out the new gear. With all that out of the way, we’ll check the GM section out, and finish up with the adventures and NPCs.

This is actually the best way to read the goddamn book, by the way.


Casey Jones is gonna gently caress this guy up for... rock theft?

ForkBanger
Jul 19, 2007



:siren: :words: :siren:

Time Travel
Time travel! Everyone’s favourite RPG mechanic, right? Bill & Ted style goofy fun and Feng Shui’s time-twisting reality adjustments are great schticks for an RPG to have, and a comic-based RPG like TMNT should totally have that, right?

Although maybe it shouldn’t have been put into the hands of Erick Wujcik.

Time and Time Again
Time and time travel in Transdimension TMNT is centered on the concept of Temporal Energy (T.E.). This energy pushes forward through time at 60 seconds per minute, moving time onward through the time stream and creating the entropy that allows change.
Everything contains T.E., but it’s effects are unnoticed- so long as you remain in the ‘right’ place in the time stream.
Your T.E. offsets the forward pressure of the time stream, which means you don’t age and disintegrate under that pressure. If you’re in the ‘wrong’ place in time, seriously bad things can happen to you. We’ll look at those when we get around to building time machines.

The flow of Temporal Energy is weakening as it moves into the future- the speed remains constant at 60 seconds per minute, but the force decreases. This discrepancy between T.E. levels is the cause of the seriously bad things that happen to you mentioned above, as things that exist earlier in the universe have more T.E. than things that exist later. We’re told that a 200lb dinosaur from 100 million years ago has a lot more T.E. than a 200lb mutant animal from the 20th Century, for example.

Temporal Freeze
If you built a device that counteracted this flow of Temporal Energy, pushing you backwards at 60 seconds per minute, it would create a Temporal Freeze in it’s area of effect. If you’re not properly protected in this area, the Temporal Energy of the time stream will cause you to wither, age and die. Oops. If you’re protected, as long have enough air, you’ll be able to move around and act normally within the confines of your time field, with time passing normally (for you), while outside the field, time is stopped. This leads us on to...

Time Traveling The Hard Way
The hard way to time travel is to overpower the time stream- either pump enough T.E. into something to push forward at more than 60 seconds per minute, or enough T.E. to make the thing go backwards.
We’re told that it takes about 10,000 watts to add or subtract a second from a minute, and then we’re off to an example from Beyond the Supernatural, presumably because it uses a magic spell that doesn’t exist in TMNT (or even in this book, despite having a Time Wizard section).
To be fair, it does a pretty good job of showing the power expenditure- the Time Slip spell pushes you 7 seconds into the future- and for the same amount of energy, you can teleport 50lbs of stuff 5 miles, or call down three seriously powerful lightning bolts. That’s some pretty major juice.
Time travelling this way also takes time- you have to wait in your device while you travel.
If you cranked your T.E up to 6,000 seconds per minute, adding 5,940 seconds to each minute for a mere 59,400,000 watts, or 59.4 megawatts, which is, to use a technical term, an absolute shitton of power for a dinky little time machine.

quote:

At peak consumption, usually from May to mid-December, CERN uses about 200 megawatts of power, which is about a third of the amount of energy used to feed the nearby city of Geneva in Switzerland.

For all that power, after traveling for 1 day in your time machine, you'll be 100 days forward in time. At that rate, it would take you 2 years to travel 200 years into future.

That’s going the easy way, forwards through time, where you don’t have to counteract the flow of Temporal Energy.

Time Traveling The Easy Way
Luckily, there’s an easier option for getting when you want to be.

Timehosepipes and Twists and Cycles
Think of time as a hosepipe. The water flowing through it is the Temporal Energy, carrying everything in the timehosepipe forward, from the past to now and then onwards into the future.
Now, imagine the timehosepipe is coiled up, and those coils are stacked atop each other.
Each of those coils is a Twist of time, about 125 years.
If you punch a hole from your Twist into the Twist above or below and go through it, you travel 125 years into the future, or 125 years into the past.
The problem with this is that Twists are kind of small- say you want to travel 125,000 years into the past. You can’t skip over Twists, so you have to go through each in turn. That means you’d have to punch through 100 of those Twists to get when you wanted to be.
Want to see a dinosaur? Enjoy your half-million time jumps.
Let’s go back to our timehosepipe analogy. You see how that stack of Twists forms another timehosepipe? A megapipe, if you will? If you coil that up, too, and stack those coils, you have what are known as Cycles, mega-Twists.
If you punched a hole from your Cycle into the Cycle above or below, it, you travel much, much further into the future or past than you would dicking around with Twists. Once you’re into the right Cycle, you can hop around the Twists to get more or less when you want to be.

Also, for reasons that are never explained, you can jump directly to any Cycle, even though they follow the same structure as Twists.

I spent five minutes in photoshop to make this image-

In doing so, I spent significantly more time illustrating the concept than Palladium did.

Since the force of Temporal Energy is stronger in the past, our timehosepipe doesn’t coil as nicely then. As the force wanes, the timehosepipe coils more neatly. Basically, Cycles and Twists cover longer stretches of time the further back you go.

This structure of Twists and Cycles is used for navigation.
The TMNT now of 1988AD is Twist Null, Cycle Prime.
Twists forward in time are numbered. 2113AD is Twist 1. 2238AD is Twist 2. 2963AD is Twist 7.
Twists backward in time are lettered. 1863AD is Twist A. 1738AD is Twist B. 1113AD is Twist G.
There are no Cycles going forward in time- in fact, there’s an impenetrable barrier on June 10th, 2986AD that’s known as the Third Millennial Barrier.
Cycles backward are lettered- Cycle A is 13,262BC, with 126 year Twists. Cycle B is 350,000BC, with 132 year Twists. Cycle G is 265 million years ago, with 867 year Twists.

Finally, everyone travels through time at the usual 60 seconds per minute.
If Jim jumps to Twist 4, Cycle G, and Bob jumps to Twist 4, Cycle Prime, and they both come back after an hour, they’re both an hour older and 1 hour has passed in Twist Null, Cycle Prime.
Basically, if you try to chase someone through time, you won’t arrive at their destination before they do.

Time and Geography
So, time travel punches holes in time to make the desired journeys. The short version of this is-
Time travel doesn’t move you. Start in Chicago, you’ll end up where Chicago will be or will have been.
UNLESS another time traveller has already punched a time hole into your destination. If they have, you’ll end up in their geographic destination. Start in Chicago, and you’ll end up where Moscow will be or will have been if someone else time traveled to then from Moscow.
When you leave a Twist or arrive in a Twist, you’ll use whatever time hole already exists- so time travelers end up following each other, geographically.
These time holes ‘heal’ in 3d6 months after their last use- if you wait long enough and then time travel, you’ll punch a new time hole at your geographic location.

The important thing to take away from this is that if you have a time traveling boat or plane, you can be a colossal rear end in a top hat to other time travelers by punching time holes in the middle of the Pacific.

Out of Time
Since time is measured using Twists and Cycles, there’s a problem. If you end up stuck in 1406AD, between Twists, you are utterly boned.
Twist D is 1486AD.
Twist E is 1361AD.
You are too early for one, too late for the other, out of synch with time, and you are royally hosed.
To time travel, you have to know exactly what your temporal location is, and the temporal location of your destination. This is easy if you’re on the Twists and Cycles, but impossible if you’re not.
If someone manages to gently caress up in a truly colossal way and end up out of synch, the time hole they leave can drag other people into the same situation- this was the setup for TMNT #8, that featured all of these shenanigans.

Time Geography
So time is a coiled hosepipe which is, in turn, coiled into a bigger hosepipe. You can go ‘left’ or ‘right’ between Twists, and ‘up’ or ‘down’ between Cycles. What happens if you go ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the coiled coil of coils? You end up in a Null Time Zone, a place between times. They’re usually boring and empty and useless, and can be unstable- if you’re in one and it collapses, you could end up anywhere and anywhen.
The most useful and stable Null Time Zone is the 79th- it’s a cylinder inside the current Twists of time, with a 125 year cycle, the same as the Twists around it, which keeps it stable, and it has access to all of the Twists of Cycle Prime.
This lets you use the 79th as a shortcut between Twists in Cycle Prime, by hopping into it and then out again.

There’s Always a But
The 79th level of the dimension of Null-Time is inhabited by the Time Lords, lead by Lord Simultaneous. They take a very firm view on who runs Bartertown the 79th, what you can and can’t do while time traveling, and as they are magical loving time wizards their view is put forward robustly.

That’s All, Folks!
That’s time travel covered! Done!
No problems there, right?
Except…
Well, I have a question. I think it’s a pretty important one.

What happens if time travel and change the past?

This is an important thing to address in your time travel game.

Do you use a Fixed Timeline, where your shenanigans in the past are and always have been a part of history, so you’re meant to go and do them? (See: The Terminator, 12 Monkeys)

Do you use a Dynamic Timeline, where your antics cause paradox ripples to echo forward and change your present? (See: Back to the Future)

Do you use a Divergent Timeline, where your actions cause a new timeline to sprout, directed by your actions? (See: Terminator 2, Star Trek)

Do you use an Elastic Timeline, where your actions cause only minor changes and the tide of history self-corrects? (See: Feng Shui)

These are all valid methods, but it would be nice to know which is ‘meant’ to be used- especially if you’re going to add some kind of, I don’t know, Time Lords into the mix who have opinions on this stuff.

This isn’t covered in the time travel overview.
It isn’t covered in the mechanics of time machines.
It isn’t covered in the mechanics of temporal energy.
It is covered, however.
Where?
In the second sample adventure.
Yes, the thing that’s the crux of a time travel game, what happens if you time travel, is only covered in one of the sample adventures. And it’s the second sample adventure, at that.

Let’s skip on another 50 pages, and see what’s up.

Back to the Future
Yeah, it’s the model from the blockbuster movie that came out 4 years before this book. Changing the past causes changes to ripple forward in waves.
Wave 1, “Warning” - Harmless, no real changes. Can be detected by temporal measuring devices used to steer time machines.
Wave 2, “Editing” - Minor changes in small things- the text of books might change to reflect a historical change.
Wave 3, “Deletion” - Simple objects that conflict with the new history start vanishing, and are forgotten.
Wave 4, “Raze” - Actually a series of smaller waves that snuff out every complicated created thing that is at odds with the new history.
Wave 5, “Extermination” - People are changed to reflect the new history.
Wave 6, “Recreation” - The whole world is recreated to reflect the changes.

It’s one of the better methods for an RPG, as you can use it for dramatic purposes and to provide plot hooks and clues, as well as increase the urgency of the situation.

Also, it’s in a loving stupid place.

Crasical
Apr 22, 2014

GG!*
*GET GOOD

I unironically love the warshovel, here.

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


It is great...although I have absolutely no idea why it would be involved in an aquatic-themed book.

Xelkelvos
Dec 19, 2012

Crasical posted:

I unironically love the warshovel, here.

War shovels and battle spades need to be in more books

AmiYumi
Oct 10, 2005

I FORGOT TO HAIL KING TORG

oriongates posted:

It is great...although I have absolutely no idea why it would be involved in an aquatic-themed book.
I felt the same way about the "I trap an area, one 5' square at a time" class, in an environment where everyone has 3D movement. But since no one else's brought it up, maybe I'm the strange one?

Kellsterik
Mar 30, 2012

AmiYumi posted:

I felt the same way about the "I trap an area, one 5' square at a time" class, in an environment where everyone has 3D movement. But since no one else's brought it up, maybe I'm the strange one?

I was wondering that too. Is this supplement mainly for adventuring on the sea floor? Or do they mean 5' cube and it's like floating traps?

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

ForkBanger posted:



Out of Time
Since time is measured using Twists and Cycles, there’s a problem. If you end up stuck in 1406AD, between Twists, you are utterly boned.
Twist D is 1486AD.
Twist E is 1361AD.
You are too early for one, too late for the other, out of synch with time, and you are royally hosed.
To time travel, you have to know exactly what your temporal location is, and the temporal location of your destination. This is easy if you’re on the Twists and Cycles, but impossible if you’re not.
If someone manages to gently caress up in a truly colossal way and end up out of synch, the time hole they leave can drag other people into the same situation- this was the setup for TMNT #8, that featured all of these shenanigans.

So time is an infinited coil stacked on top of itself stacked on top of itself... but you can only progress between a set of clearly defined years even though there should be a path from 1485 to 1360 just the same as there is from 1486 to 1361.

Do they explain why that is? because the whole "time moves the same speed for everyone" means that your character has exactly 1 good year of time travel in him before he gets to stop for 120 years.

Xelkelvos
Dec 19, 2012

Kurieg posted:

So time is an infinited coil stacked on top of itself stacked on top of itself... but you can only progress between a set of clearly defined years even though there should be a path from 1485 to 1360 just the same as there is from 1486 to 1361.

Do they explain why that is? because the whole "time moves the same speed for everyone" means that your character has exactly 1 good year of time travel in him before he gets to stop for 120 years.

Actually, wouldn't all points move simultaneously in time?

ForkBanger
Jul 19, 2007

Kurieg posted:

So time is an infinited coil stacked on top of itself stacked on top of itself... but you can only progress between a set of clearly defined years even though there should be a path from 1485 to 1360 just the same as there is from 1486 to 1361.

Do they explain why that is? because the whole "time moves the same speed for everyone" means that your character has exactly 1 good year of time travel in him before he gets to stop for 120 years.

It's like an incredibly clumsy version of Feng Shui's junctures, I think? The Twists all progress in synch, and you have the 125 year gaps between available time periods.

They just state this, and make no mention of the progression of time through the timetubepipes, so your guess is as good as mine.

For a book with time travel as a main concept, they spend precious little time explaining it, and the time they do spend is on mechanics that don't really matter.

Spoiler for the GM section, every Cycle except the current one has a single entry, so the individual Twists in those Cycles are meaningless.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 52 minutes!

Crasical posted:

I unironically love the warshovel, here.

oriongates posted:

It is great...although I have absolutely no idea why it would be involved in an aquatic-themed book.
Yeah, I mean, if it was a warladle it would make more sense, since there's water everywhere!

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

ForkBanger posted:

It's like an incredibly clumsy version of Feng Shui's junctures, I think? The Twists all progress in synch, and you have the 125 year gaps between available time periods.

They just state this, and make no mention of the progression of time through the timetubepipes, so your guess is as good as mine.

For a book with time travel as a main concept, they spend precious little time explaining it, and the time they do spend is on mechanics that don't really matter.

Spoiler for the GM section, every Cycle except the current one has a single entry, so the individual Twists in those Cycles are meaningless.

but... that doesn't make any sense.. since there shouldn't be any distinction between "1986" and "1986 when the twists align" because time doesn't work that way.

I'm beginning to think the answer is "they didn't put enough any thought into it."

Hyper Crab Tank
Feb 10, 2014

The 16-bit retro-future of crustacean-based transportation
It should be that if you can travel from 2000 to 2125, say, because the twists align so that a full turn around a twist is 125 years into the future/past, then you should just as easily be able to travel from 2010 to 2135, because those two points in time should also be as close to each other as 2000 and 2125 are. Instead, it seems that easily-traveled-between years don't merely have to be in phase with each other, they have to be in phase with a specific "root" year, which conveniently seems to be whatever year you are playing the game in.

Still, even so, this isn't the worst take on time travel I've seen or heard of.

Lightning Lord
Feb 21, 2013

$200 a day, plus expenses

Plague of Hats posted:

I'm taking a hiatus! I was already taking a year+ hiatus from my MERP review, which I really do intend to finish, honest.

Speaking of Iron Crown Enterprises, I'm thinking of doing Shadow World for this thread. I have the 4th Edition Master Atlas, which was one of the few products released by the new ICE, funded by a bunch of angel investors and which as far as I know, is in some sort of weird limbo since 2003 after releasing a new edition of Rolemaster. It's a pretty cool science fantasy setting, but it's necessary to tease it out of the acronym heavy and weirdly named skills for everything world of the Rolemaster system. The only problem is, I have very little knowledge of Rolemaster itself, so I'm not sure I'm the best candidate for writing about a product for it. That might be an interesting angle though - what does someone not familiar with the mechanics, who only has the book because of the setting make of it? Is it worth getting for that reason?

As an aside, Shadow World's creator Terry K. Amthor is a really interesting guy, one of the founders of ICE and I believe the first openly gay designer in gaming. He wrote an article called "Queer as a Three-Sided Die" for White Wolf Magazine that was sort of an opening salvo in making the hobby more inclusive. I know the name is now being used for an annual panel at GenCon about the experience of being gay in the hobby.

Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Dec 14, 2014

ForkBanger
Jul 19, 2007

Kurieg posted:

I'm beginning to think the answer is "they didn't put enough any thought into it."

They didn't put the right kind of thought into it.

Ryuujin
Sep 26, 2007
Dragon God
I am looking forward to Teenage Mutant Ninja Dinos. Or maybe less teenage and less ninja, but still badass mutant dinos. I still kind of want to try a TMNT game playing something like a Dino. Or from the core book maybe an elephant for something relatively big and strong, or I kind of like the idea of a Porcupine, with its natural armor and spikes for when things try to punch or kick it. But I don't think anyone is likely to run another Palladium game, even if it did involves mutant dinos.

Don't think I have had a chance to look at the Transdimensional book with the Dinosaurs, so I am looking forward to it.

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


Lightning Lord posted:

Speaking of Iron Crown Enterprises, I'm thinking of doing Shadow World for this thread. I have the 4th Edition Master Atlas, which was one of the few products released by the new ICE, funded by a bunch of angel investors and which as far as I know, is in some sort of weird limbo since 2003 after releasing a new edition of Rolemaster. It's a pretty cool science fantasy setting, but it's necessary to tease it out of the acronym heavy and weirdly named skills for everything world of the Rolemaster system. The only problem is, I have very little knowledge of Rolemaster itself, so I'm not sure I'm the best candidate for writing about a product for it. That might be an interesting angle though - what does someone not familiar with the mechanics, who only has the book because of the setting make of it? Is it worth getting for that reason?

I think this might be a better approach with some of the older modules, like the 3E boxed sets. The 4E atlas is honestly not so great, because they tried to pack way too much of everything in it, and even with how lightly they tried to do them, the stats eat up a lot of boring space. The straightforward reveal of the secret history is also kind of disappointing, really downplaying the "fantasy" part of science-fantasy.

Powers of Light & Dark (4E's "gods and such" book) is much better written and organized, but you'd probably want to cover an atlas of any edition first so that it would make more sense.

I think they've released new stuff on DTRPG not too long ago, too, and maybe re-released older edition stuff there as well. (I'd do better checking, but I'm phone-posting.)

In summary: yeah, maybe?

quote:

As an aside, Shadow World's creator Terry K. Amthor is a really interesting guy, one of the founders of ICE and I believe the first openly gay designer in gaming. He wrote an article called "Queer as a Three-Sided Die" for White Wolf Magazine that was sort of an opening salvo in making the hobby more inclusive. I know the name is now being used for an annual panel at GenCon about the experience of being gay in the hobby.

Yeah, TKA is a really cool guy. I haven't checked in a while, but not too long ago he was still publishing his travelogue fiction for Shadow World online.

Eldad Assarach
May 1, 2014
Again, Christmas keeps getting in the way, but I'm nearly done...



Part 8: ATB Adventure Double-Header!

The next two adventures aren't particularly lengthy, especially when condensed by a taciturn weenie like me, so we're saving time and space by shoving them together.

Clem's Big Adventure

This adventure is described as “moderately difficult”... which is slightly worrying, given that the introductory adventures involve fighting hordes of zombies and giant tanks.

During a routine patrol in the woods, the party will hear somebody cussing and muttering. Investigating the sounds, they'll come across a hound dog riding atop a giant beetle. The hound is called Clem, and is described in the book as “Sort of a “larger, more aggressive Beverly Hillbillies' Jethro Bodine, complete with the 'aw shucks'”. The beetle is named Betsy, and is more interested in eating the leaves off a tree than obeying Clem's orders. Clem greets the PCs (nearly breaking their hands by shaking them) and begins telling them about how he met some “humins” working on “some old-time machines” to dig up the earth. When he introduced himself, they tried to kill him and he fled on Betsy (She can outrun pretty much anything). He'll ask the party if they can help him stop the “humins”, as he's worried they might hurt some friends of his.


Clem, as drawn by Peter Laird...

S.D.C., THAT IS. SET A SPELL, TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF.

The book says that the “humins” are about 6-10 days journey away, giving the GM plenty of time to inflict this NPC's hilarious yokel ways on the party, because if you didn't want your players to hate you, you wouldn't be running a Palladium game. This will be broken up when they get into a scuffle with some Free Plains mutants (the trail takes them right through their territory) who become less hospitable when they realise a mutant is riding another mutant (Betsy isn't sapient and is completely loyal to Clem, but it's the principle of the thing). When they finally get there, they find that there is indeed The Empire doing evil poo poo, because that's their thing.


... and here he is, once again reimagined by Apollo Okamura.

This particular evil plot is masterminded by Captain Xavier Diega, whose ambitions led to him being reassigned in the middle of nowhere. This appears to have backfired a little, as Diega's found a colony of giant mutant ants (these are the friends Clem mentioned) and subduing them by killing most of them (there'll be just enough to and putting their queen in a drug-induced coma, so she can pump out more loyal servants(she's currently up to 1,200 eggs in various stages of development) Then, he's going to go back to Technoville and overthrow Christian.


Again, I could see Playmates turning this into one of those action figures they churned out in the 90's.

Security at the base is a mixed bag; the dozen soldiers at the base are all draftees, but Diega's also got six genetically modified Size Level 15 soldier ants to do his bidding. Unfortunately for Diega, the ants would be more than happy to tell him to piss off if their Queen (or “Queenie”, as she's known) is rescued, which is where the PCs come in. And that's how you stop Diega (hopefully without killing any ants – Clem will be upset if you even kill the soldier ants, because “they ain't bad boys, just misguided”). For anybody wondering, 2nd Edtion adds precious little to this adventure, aside from some nice Nokomura art and a plug for Mutants in Orbit.

Aerial Supremacy

This one's for “intermediate and experienced players”, although any group of less than six players need to have a few scout hirelings to bump themselves up to eight characters.

You get sent into a conference room where you're greeted by Irma Prider, a badger who you know works closely with President Thana. She's followed by Dwayne Thatchwing, a grubby little douchebag who Irma clearly hates. It seems Dwayne and his group of “freelance explorers” found a pre-Big Death artifact so powerful that he's not trusting anybody with exact information, so he's taking the party along to help bring it back; it's his way or the highway. Cardania is humouring him on the assumption that it might turn out to be genuine. That said, they're not pushing the boat out for this one, hence the PCs being hired instead of regular scouts/soldiers. Also, you can't requisition anything for this trip – it's payment on delivery only.


Here's Dwayne. Only a mother could love that face.

THE FURTHER ON THE EDGE, THE HIGHER THE M.D.C.

Dwayne will take the party a camp near some pre-Big Death ruins of what was once a top-secret aircraft factory, to meet the rest of his gang; Cosgrave, a psychic horned toad who enjoys dishing out insults (but can't take it, of course); Usub, an alligator who's not too bright and will kill anybody who makes fun of him if the opportunity arises (including Cosgrave, of course); and finally Tab, a tiger who really wants a mate (but is too much of a bitch strong, confident woman). They also plan on double-crossing you all - in fact, they all want to double-cross each other at some point.


Here's Cosgrave. Usub's character art was used earlier on in 1st Edition, and (mercifully, for anybody worrying about furbait) Tab wasn't drawn by Laird.

They have something quite large under a tarp, which they keep looking under (Without letting anybody else take a peek). What's under the tarp? A bashed-up ATM. See, what they actually found was an AI called GEOS-8, who is currently inside Usub's backpack (He's been told by Dwayne to guard it with his life, so good luck getting that). What is GEOS-8? It's the control unit for the Shadowfade 502, a super-special-awesome jet fighter made out of Magic-Metal. Yes, really. It's hidden in the ruins amongst a load of junk, because the Magic-Metal has formed itself to look like junk, because it's just that advanced. Fortunately for the PCs, Dwayne and his crew hasn't found it yet. Even more fortunately, the Empire expedition hasn't found it either.


The most advanced fighter plane in the world, apparently.

Yes, The Empire's horning in, as per usual, hence why Dwayne and his group haven't stripped the ruins to the bone. They've even brought their robot suits, as well as a chain gang of mutant slaves. If anybody with Psionics contacts the slaves, they'll be more than willing to lead a slave revolt; attacking The Empire is of course a stupid move, owing to the aforementioned robot suits, and the fact that the scientists in the expedition will just radio for backup if need be. The trick will be getting GEOS-8 off Usub without dying in the process, finding the Shadowfade without getting killed by Dwayne's crew or The Empire, slotting GEOS-8 in (it'll be happy to give instructions - it just wants to do its job) and speeding off into the sunset. If any of Dwayne's crew insert GEOS-8, they'll screw it up somehow, but if The Empire's scientists install GEOS-8 then everyone's screwed.


Another Okamura illustration. Looks like he's better with portraits and action pieces than landscapes.

Interestingly, this is the only TMNT adventure (aside from the last two modules, but that's for another time) I've seen which has an actual ending. Admittedly, it's just "If the party gets the plane to Cardania, they get 2 million bucks to share amongst them" which is kinda lovely if they had to have NPC hirelings, but it's something. Frankly, this whole adventure feels a bit half-arsed.

Next time: I might actually finish this thing!

Fossilized Rappy
Dec 26, 2012
A new Cerulean Seas sourcebook was just released, this one focused on freshwater areas and East Asian mythology. I'm not sure how this will affect my original plan of going through all the Cerulean Seas sourcebooks before looking at any other books, but for now I'm working to get Azure Abyss wrapped up nice and neat.

Carrasco posted:

The Myxinmave is my new favorite prestige class. How does that Spew Hagfish ability even work? Do hagfish just swim around in their stomaches all day? Does a portal to the Plane of Hagfish open in their mouths?
The ability is based on the spell vomit swarm, which is a Conjuration (Creation) spell, so you are literally birthing new hagfish into the world. With your mouth.

AmiYumi posted:

I felt the same way about the "I trap an area, one 5' square at a time" class, in an environment where everyone has 3D movement. But since no one else's brought it up, maybe I'm the strange one?
It does indeed say "5 foot square", so no, you aren't the odd one out.

Kellsterik posted:

I was wondering that too. Is this supplement mainly for adventuring on the sea floor? Or do they mean 5' cube and it's like floating traps?
Floating traps that act as a 5 foot cube is a pretty good houserule for this.

Gazetteer
Nov 22, 2011

"You're talking to cats."
"And you eat ghosts, so shut the fuck up."




The Mummy

The Mummy is an ancient ruler of unspecified cultural background who has awoken from a centuries-long slumber and is now out to get all of their rightful power and prestige back. Apparently they are going to do this by going to highschool. They’re self centred and think they’re better than everyone else, feel they deserve success without necessarily having done anything to earn it, and are generally just an entitled little poo poo who feels like they’re never getting everything they’re owed.

Unfortunately, the skin’s mechanics completely fail to deliver on this concept. It’s pretty sad, because I… like the concept a lot. I like the idea of being a powerful being from the ancient world and of like, trying to take over the school to relive past glory and stuff like that. I also like the idea of a flatout “social control” skin that’s more solitary than the Queen (I have since gotten that part, at least, from the Second Skin’s The Wyrm). But pretty much none of the Mummy’s skin moves actually reward players for engaging in that kind of behaviour. It doesn’t encourage players to create firm goals for themselves, it doesn’t give players a mechanical reward for pursuing those goals, and it doesn’t have anything to tell players “yes, you get cool stuff for acting like a dick.”

Going into this, I thought the skin’s biggest problem was a simple lack of focus -- the play advice notably tells us that three of the moves “serve the same narrative function (explaining how you stay awake, active and healthy)”, and advises us to avoid taking them in combination. Just writing that kind of requires a pretty big lack of self awareness on the designer’s part, because if you have three moves that serve the same narrative purpose in Monsterhearts, you need to change or get rid of two of them. It also displays a failure to understand that, by making 3/7 of your basic skin moves be entirely about clearing conditions and healing harm -- with a 4th that can also do those things, and a 5th that’s about preventing harm to begin with -- you are not making a skin about social domination and egocentrism. You are making a skin about healing. And the fact that the designer didn’t know he was making a skin about healing means that he does nothing interesting with it -- having some moves like this would make way more sense if the Mummy were, say, constantly taking harm from some source, but that’s simply not the case, so you end up with a situation where the designer feels the need to remind you that he feels like three of the moves he’s written for this skin are boring in combination with each other.

The Mummy’s good stats are Hot and Dark. This means that they’re good at coercing people and introspection/magical poo poo, but they’re not very good at defencive social moves or physical fighting. This makes the combination sort of a social glass cannon -- other skins with this combination include the Fae and the Mortal. They can probably accomplish a lot of things when they’re trying, but they can’t really defend themselves terribly well from social or physical attack. The former seems like a problem for this particular skin, just based on the concept, but don’t worry. There’s a move that completely trivialises its poor Cold stat, which I think we were all expecting by this point.

All of the Origins assume a supernatural background, and represent either different ways in which you could have been mummified, like “frozen solid” or “peat bog murder”, or different ways you could have been betrayed and imprisoned, like “betrayed royalty” or “sacrificial offering.” Most of them are also references to famous real world mummies that have been found and studied.

Skin Moves

You start with any two of the following moves: (this is a bad sign right away -- this style of skin is way harder to craft a consistent playstyle with, since you can’t assume that the player has access to a central mechanic, and like I said this was one of the first ones that got written for this collection, so... )

Mummy’s Curse
Whenever anyone inflicts at least 1 harm on you (from any source, for any reason), they gain the condition “Fungal Rot.”

Okay, so, first of all, sorry, the condition is called Fungal Rot, not the move itself. Also, I apologise that this isn’t a terrible STD related move, since I know some of you are really disappointed about that. This is, as it turns out, not even necessarily a D&D reference, as I have since found out that D&D cribbed mummy rot off of the old 30s/40s The Mummy films. So... really my joke at the end of the last entry doesn't actually work on any level.

Anyway, how it actually works, is: attack the mummy, get a terrible rotting flesh disease of unspecified shittiness! … Except, it’s kind of worse than than in D&D, because in D&D you can’t get Mummy Rot from shooting a mummy with a gun, or from attacking them with magic or whatever. Here, it’s explicitly a curse invoked by hurting them in any way. And… it’s one of the more interesting moves in the skin. I’m kind of of two minds about it, but it’s still way more elegant than most of the Skins for the Skinless moves.

Basically, getting a condition, even a physical one, is theoretically not that steep a penalty for doing something in Monsterhearts. Other people can use them against you, and physical conditions are “true” in the same vein as Fate aspects are “true”, but other than that there’s no real mechanical disadvantage, and you can get rid of them without too much trouble in most cases. But… having briefly played in a game with a Mummy who had this move, it’s surprisingly effective. Because, well, “ew.” Knowing that punching that smug mummy kid in the face is going to result in your character having a terrible rotting fungus sprout on them is actually a pretty good incentive against punching the mummy kid in the face. So, what this move actually does is slap people on the wrist for trying to take you out physically. This covers for your lovely volatile stat without completely trivialising it; that’s the kind of thing I wish Skins for the Skinless did more often.

At the same time, I don’t know if I like that it happens every time you do harm to them in any way, with no way to circumvent it or any chance of failure on the Mummy’s part. I think I’d honestly rather it be a Dark roll triggered after someone deals damage to you, rather than the way it exists now.

Royal Decree
When you Shut Someone Down, roll with Hot instead of Cold. And you add+1 to all of your Turn Someone on and Manipulate an NPC rolls.

The first part is okay, but really needs to be more specific. Like, the Ghoul’s “roll cold instead of hot to be sexy” move specifies that the Ghoul does this by being intriguingly weird/lifeless seeming -- it’s a benefit, but it adds flavour and also sends the message that being turned on by the Ghoul is going to be vaguely unsettling. This move is just a flat swap. And the second part is completely unnecessary -- for all intents and purposes it’s a flat +1 to Hot with no strings attached and no limitations, meaning that if you bump your Hot stat up to 3 with an advance, you will be rolling +4 for all regular Hot rolls all the time. As a reminder, the only way to possibly gently caress up when you’re rolling at +4 is if you get snake eyes.

This… literally just feels like someone wrote an Apocalypse World move and then directly ported it into Monsterhearts without considering the differences in the way the two games treat moves. MH doesn’t have “moves” that are literally just an extra point in a random stat, because those moves are kind of boring. Royal Decree almost feels like an attempt at rule lawyering around that.

Soul Eater
You can steal other peoples’ life force by kissing them, exactly like that mummy girl from that one episode of Buffy who Xander had a thing for. When you kiss someone and use this, roll Dark. On a 10+, you do 1 harm to your target and mark experience. On a 7-9, give your target the condition Drained and a string on you. On a fail, you take damage.

Once again, completely dictating the result of a hard move: gently caress off. Aside from that… that’s a completely different result for the 7-9. And, unlike the Buffy episode, where the mummy literally needed to feed or she’d start turning all corpsy, here there’s literally no penalty for going too long without feeding -- not even a completely narrative one like, again, the Ghoul. If this move is really supposed to represent how you keep yourself from crumbling away, it needs a penalty for not using it.

Soulmate
You choose another character to be your soulmate -- they are the reincarnation of your past love from ancient times. You and your soulmate both get +1 ongoing toward all rolls made against each other. Whenever one of you would gain strings on the other, the amount of strings is doubled.

So, you know how the Mortal is a skin based entirely around having a true love and like, trying to win that true love over and stuff? Well, good news, because here’s a move that completely steals their thunder! Basically, this functions like a double-edged True Love, but moreso. Mortals only get a +1 to rolls made in order to gain their love’s affections. This is a flat bonus to all rolls, for both parties. And doubled string gains without any kind of restriction is going to get pretty ridiculous really fast. The Wyrm has a move that doubles string gains, but it only works on characters who have another skin’s special condition on them -- this is working all the time. Like Royal Decree, this move is just too strong and is going to do really weird things to the string economy.

So, I know I said this move was kind of stealing The Mortal’s gimmick, but I also want you to imagine, for a moment, a game with both a Mortal and a Mummy. If the Mummy takes the Mortal as a Soulmate, and the Mortal takes the Mummy as a True Love… then the Mortal is going to be rolling +4 for things like Turning the Mummy On right from the beginning of the game. If they take an advance, that turns into a +5 -- that’s a guaranteed success.The numbers at play here are just way too big.

Sun-Blessed
You can remove 1 condition and 1 point of harm if you spend a scene “bathed in sunlight.” At night, you gain the condition “Weakened.”

So, this is the skin’s second “don’t crumble into dust” move, this one making you solar-powered, which just seems way more sustainable over the long term than the dementor kiss option up above. It’s not actually clear from the wording whether you lose the Weakened condition during the day automatically, or if you’re meant to clear it by bathing in sunlight.

The problem with this is that, what this move is fundamentally doing is telling you and the MC that scenes should be set out in sunlight whenever possible -- which actually goes against the regular tone advice from core book. But... literally none of the Mummy’s other moves give a poo poo about whether or not you’re sunlight, so that’s just a waste of time beyond healing the Mummy up. This is part of why you don’t have three moves that serve the same narrative purpose in the same skin.

Tana Leaves
You have a limited supply of tana leaves you can use to brew a magical tea. Roll Dark. On a 10+, you’ve brewed a powerful tea that can heal 2 harm if you drink it. On a 7-9, it heals 1 harm. On a 6-, it removes a condition but you’ve run out of leaves. You need to go out of your way to try and get more.

So, once again, no actual penalty here for not doing this, which suggests that it and Soul Eater do not actually fulfill the same narrative function that Sun-Blessed does, but whatever. This is another reference to the old The Mummy movies -- magical tea that keeps you alive or makes other mummies or whatever the gently caress the writers need it to do this film.

This is absolutely the worst example of Topher dictating the result of a hard move to the MC, so I hate that part. Especially since it literally represents the only interesting part of this move -- something bad/compromising should happen on a 7-9. Healing a point of harm is just not very interesting without anything else to add to it. Having moves like this and Sun-Blessed would make a lot more sense if this were a skin that were, again, constantly taking harm from some source, and didn't have a move like Mummy Rot designed to limit the amount of damage you take in the first place. And I said that “you run out of leaves” is an interesting situation, but that’s not saying much, as there’s probably no real urgency to find more. It’s not like you’ll die or anything, or even get a “Weakened” condition. So, it’s a dull move that just doesn’t go anywhere.

Cursed Idols
This one move literally takes up as much space on the PDF as five of the previous six moves combined.

You’ve got a collection of various cursed artifacts. Once per scene, you can use one of these to give yourself a beneficial effect. It will also have a negative one you can’t predict, though.

When you use an artifact’s power, choose one blessing from this list:
  • Add 1 to any of your stats for a scene
  • Treat one roll as if you had rolled a 10+
  • Do 1 harm to someone
  • Remove 1 harm from someone
  • Give someone a condition of your choice
  • Remove a condition from someone
  • Take a string on someone
  • Choose a third highlighted stat for a scene

The MC then chooses a curse from this list:
  • Subtract 1 from one of your stats for a scene
  • Treat your next roll as if you’d rolled a miss
  • Take 1 harm
  • Gain a condition of the MC’s choice
  • Someone gains a string on you
  • An NPC acts with advantage against you for the scene
  • One of your Mummy moves stops working for a scene
  • Your worst enemy marks experience

So… those are some pretty loving extensive lists. What these narrow down to, though, is bolting another “plot point” system onto a game that already has one, with another set of hard moves to go along with it. In a game that already has a hard move list. All it means is that the Mummy has a risky way to get one up on people in a given scene. The concept of the cursed artifacts isn’t bad, but this is just way too vague and extensive to steer the player in any kind of direction. Not to mention that some of these are just waaay too strong. I mean, +1 to a stat for a scene is pretty big. And the MC isn’t going to hit you with -1 on the same stat unless they’re a lovely MC.

I feel like you could probably have accomplished more with less effort by giving the Mummy a move that helped them gain strings for, I don’t know, demonstrating their superiority over people. You know. The kind of behaviour that this skin is supposed to be about, which literally none of your moves have anything to do with. Aaand… this is yet another move that lets you heal harm. What a surprise.

Sex Move
When you “allow someone the privilege of lying with you”, take a string on them. They carry 1 forward to all rolls intended to benefit you, and take a -1 to the next roll meant to work against you. If they are your Soulmate, you mark experience.

You’ll note that the -1 is a one off thing, but the +1 appears to be permanent. So, unlike the Queen, whose sex move gives them a potentially temporary condition to use against their partner, the mummy just makes it so it’s easier to go along with what they want, because hey, +1 to do it. Sex moves usually have a condition to break this kind of effect, though, and this one could really use one. You will note that "have sex with your soulmate" is, as of this sex move, officially the only goal for which the Mummy is actually rewarded.

Darkest Self
You lose patience, get tired of waiting, and just pursue all of your goals with reckless abandon. You try to grab power and go after you soulmate, crushing anyone who gets in your way. You’re awesome and unstoppable and better than everyone, blah blah blah. You can only leave your darkest self when you actually accomplish one of your goals (you know, the ones that the skin does not require you to form before now), or when someone “forces you into submission.”

This is kind of an obvious one. It’s also literally the only move this skin has that delivers on the concept the play advise tells us to expect. So, it gets some points there.

Other Stuff
Mummies get an Ancient Cult as their gang advance, which is appropriate and could be kind of cool.

Next Time: The Muse -- sexy teenage phantom of the opera

Gazetteer fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Dec 16, 2014

AmiYumi
Oct 10, 2005

I FORGOT TO HAIL KING TORG

Gazetteer posted:

sexy teenage phantom of the opera
:what:

(Really digging these Skins writeups, btw. Haven't run/played Monsterhearts, but I'm getting a solid grasp on how not to.)

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Kurieg posted:

So time is an infinited coil stacked on top of itself stacked on top of itself... but you can only progress between a set of clearly defined years even though there should be a path from 1485 to 1360 just the same as there is from 1486 to 1361.

Do they explain why that is? because the whole "time moves the same speed for everyone" means that your character has exactly 1 good year of time travel in him before he gets to stop for 120 years.

Presumably the cycles would shift forward with the PCs (it's probably best to think about that too hard).

Ultimately the whole cycle system is intended so that time and date remain relatively fixed as you travel between years, so if you chase a villain into the past, you can't just arrive before them and punch them as soon as they show up. Though you can hop between eras, all time travelers are operating on the same relative time scale. You can't pull a Bill 'n Ted "well, after we're done here, we'll go to the past and put that key in the bush over here, so we'll have this key in this bush here now... ah ha!", for better or for worse. It lets you have a relatively normal adventure flow even with time travel mixed in.

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Dec 16, 2014

Hyper Crab Tank
Feb 10, 2014

The 16-bit retro-future of crustacean-based transportation
Unlike that other game that System Mastery did... I don't remember the game now, but because both the protagonists and all the relevant antagonists are time travelers, the combat system seemed to be essentially built on repeated time-travel one-upmanship until one of the two parties just spontaneously unravels due to accruing too much time paradox. But yeah, the twist and coil system seems designed to explicitly allow San Dimas Time to be a real thing and potential source of tension. Time travel is one of those conceits that can get really confusing and messed up real fast if you don't put some pretty serious restrictions on it.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 52 minutes!
Wow. It's so much to take in. The awful stuff here isn't the most awful, but there's so much of it.

In the old movies, the "mummy rot" is just a trace of mold that the mummy left on his victims when he killed them, and the tana leaves are a recurring plot point that are not about healing wounds. Combined with a "Deck of Many Things" Move and a "Brew Potion of Cure Serious Wounds" Move, this Skin totally feels like a Dungeons & Dragons character.

Royal Decree actually makes me angry. It's a swap move, with no flavour, that is also effectively +1 Hot. It's just flat-out better than other swap moves, and any Hot+ character would want to take it. Stop writing Moves that are just better than everyone else's Topher. Stop trying to win at teenage monsters, duder. You're missing the point.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Hyper Crab Tank posted:

Unlike that other game that System Mastery did... I don't remember the game now, but because both the protagonists and all the relevant antagonists are time travelers, the combat system seemed to be essentially built on repeated time-travel one-upmanship until one of the two parties just spontaneously unravels due to accruing too much time paradox.

It's called Continuum. And yes, time combat was crazy in that game, they had to invent whole new tenses for the grammar to explain the things that you were going to do, and had done, but haven't done yet. If you accumulate too much paradox then you cease to exist in a very messy smear across the time space continuum. Downtime in the game is spent going back through time setting up all the magical convenient coincidences that kept you from dying in the last session.

sexpig by night
Sep 8, 2011

by Azathoth

Halloween Jack posted:

Wow. It's so much to take in. The awful stuff here isn't the most awful, but there's so much of it.

In the old movies, the "mummy rot" is just a trace of mold that the mummy left on his victims when he killed them, and the tana leaves are a recurring plot point that are not about healing wounds. Combined with a "Deck of Many Things" Move and a "Brew Potion of Cure Serious Wounds" Move, this Skin totally feels like a Dungeons & Dragons character.

Royal Decree actually makes me angry. It's a swap move, with no flavour, that is also effectively +1 Hot. It's just flat-out better than other swap moves, and any Hot+ character would want to take it. Stop writing Moves that are just better than everyone else's Topher. Stop trying to win at teenage monsters, duder. You're missing the point.

Yea as a fan of the old Mummy stuff I gotta say don't feel bad about your mummy rot joke being wrong because this is super more D&D than you expected I guess.

Hilariously the only time I remember tana coming up was when in one movie they were literally just a way to lure the mummy out because they were sacred and him feeling them being brewed in the right context made him all 'arg get away from my poo poo' and in the other their sole purpose is to wake up mummies and keep them from crumbling to dust. Making them into healing potions is really neutering the whole 'this ancient and powerful rite' thing.

And yea the 'rot' was just 'oh, yea this centuries old dude has weird spores and junk we don't see anymore, so when he straight up choked a man he left them behind', the whole 'horrible fungal infection' is a D&D trope taken from the urban legend that the original mummy tomb explorers all got like, anthrax or some other poisoning from the tomb or something?

I know sperging about 'arg this doesn't match the movies from my grandpa's days at all' is silly but one thing I like in MH is that even though it's clearly based on Twilight/True Blood/Teen Wolf stuff, the skins do a good job paying homage to the common cores of the assorted monster myths involved. Nothing 'mummy' really survived in that skin, it's just a D&D monster mash with a lovely 'you're a king and ergo a huge cock' that really many skins could claim as a non character defining trait and be less insufferable.

Hyper Crab Tank
Feb 10, 2014

The 16-bit retro-future of crustacean-based transportation

Tatum Girlparts posted:

the whole 'horrible fungal infection' is a D&D trope taken from the urban legend that the original mummy tomb explorers all got like, anthrax or some other poisoning from the tomb or something?

It all goes back to Howard Carter and his team who opened the tomb of Tutankhamun back in 1922. There was the silly thing about a curse laid on them after one of the explorers died in 1923 from an infected mosquito bite, with a few subsequent deaths of other members of the expedition or visitors to the tomb. It was ridiculous even then though, as Carter and others of course understood, given that most of the crew lived for several decades following the opening of the tomb. "Mold infection" was a somewhat more naturalist explanation for the deaths touted at the time (e.g. by Arthur Conan Doyle) and at least had the benefit of being slightly more plausible than "ancient mummy curse". But really, even that was kind of a pointless rationalization since, yeah, most of the explorers didn't suffer any particular effects at all.

Heliotrope
Aug 17, 2007

You're fucking subhuman
The funny thing about the Mummy is that you're supposed to be a stuck up rear end in a top hat and do whatever you think is justified to get what you want, right? But in the MCing advice section for the skins, Topher tells the MC it's their job to "humble" the Mummy, and to base the penalty the Mummy faces on if they're being ruthless or if they're using it to benefit someone else

quote:

The most important thing to remember when you have a Mummy in your game is that she has to learn some humility - and you’re the one who has to teach her. As much as she might wish otherwise, the world has changed and in many ways left her behind, and if she doesn’t change to match, she’s going to find herself lost and alone. Present her with as many object lessons to that effect as she can handle.

One of your primary tools will be Cursed Idols, if she has it. When she uses the idols unselfishly, to help or protect others without any ulterior motives, pick a curse that will only affect her mildly, if at all. On the other hand, if she uses the idols for her own benefit, to hurt others, or to get someone to do what she wants, feel free to screw her over royally by picking the worst possible curse - you want everyone at the table to say “holy poo poo, you are in trouble now” when they find out the effects of the curse.

So the player is told "Be a power hungry jerk! Do what you want to get what you deserve!" And then the MC is told "Hey if the player is being a power hungry jerk, punish them." Seems like a bit of a dick move.

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
The "Advice for the 2nd skins" are based on what he wanted the skins to work like, not aggressive any playtesting.

Atropha
Nov 17, 2010

quote:

The most important thing to remember when you have a Mummy in your game is that she has to learn some humility - and you’re the one who has to teach her. As much as she might wish otherwise, the world has changed and in many ways left her behind, and if she doesn’t change to match, she’s going to find herself lost and alone. Present her with as many object lessons to that effect as she can handle.

One of your primary tools will be Cursed Idols, if she has it. When she uses the idols unselfishly, to help or protect others without any ulterior motives, pick a curse that will only affect her mildly, if at all. On the other hand, if she uses the idols for her own benefit, to hurt others, or to get someone to do what she wants, feel free to screw her over royally by picking the worst possible curse - you want everyone at the table to say “holy poo poo, you are in trouble now” when they find out the effects of the curse.

Is it just me or does this sound a little too much like "Bitch needs to learn some respect"? Like, it's the MC's job to throw the players curveballs and make their lives difficult, not to "teach them a lesson". At the very least it's needlessly antagonistic and running contrary to what the actual Skin tells the player to do but drat if this doesn't sound like he had a specific person in mind who he thought needed to be knocked down a peg or two. Never mind the idiocy of calling Cursed Idols a primary tool when it's completely optional to the Skin.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

SuddenConsequences posted:

Is it just me or does this sound a little too much like "Bitch needs to learn some respect"? Like, it's the MC's job to throw the players curveballs and make their lives difficult, not to "teach them a lesson". At the very least it's needlessly antagonistic and running contrary to what the actual Skin tells the player to do but drat if this doesn't sound like he had a specific person in mind who he thought needed to be knocked down a peg or two. Never mind the idiocy of calling Cursed Idols a primary tool when it's completely optional to the Skin.

Keep in mind the skin's stuff also seems to treat Soulmates as a primary thing when it's also completely optional. Topher seems to just have not understood the problem there.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
For the record I'm really okay being wrong about the Mummy's theme.

The Deleter
May 22, 2010
Apocalypse World Third Party Playbook Party

THE JUGGERNAUT

The Juggernaut is an option for people who want to play the Space Marine Mammal but their dumb friends won’t let them. It’s a guy in a powered suit, who is strong in the comforting metal and invasive brain needles of said suit but just a regular chump whilst outside it. It’s written by Mike Sands, the author of the PtbA game Monster of the Week, who generally creates pretty decent playbooks. You’ll see quite a few more come from him as we go.

Thankfully, there’s no X-Men references in this playbook.

Stats:
You may notice that all of the Juggernaut’s possible stat lines have Sharp +2, and the rest range from +1 to -1. You’re really good at noticing and analyzing people and situations, but a bit bad at everything else. There’s a reason for this.

Moves:
You start with Beast of War, which allows you to roll +Sharp instead of +Hard when you Go Aggro or Sieze by Force, and count as a small Gang in battle, as long as you are in your suit. Your ability to calculate what is happening around you is translated into combat action, which makes sense for someone augmented by a powered suit. Additionally, your spread of stats outside of Sharp is never very high, so it encourages you to use your suit and exposes you as a bit of a chump otherwise.

Gazetteer moans occasionally about stat swap moves in Monsterhearts, where you use a different stat for a move instead of the default. In Monsterhearts, it’s more of a big deal because you usually only have 4 stats, but the main reason it’s not a good idea on its own is that it’s often done as a patch to try and cover what should be an intentional weakness. Beast of War doesn’t do this - it only helps the Juggernaut in smashing things up, and only when in his suit. At everything else, he’s either a chump or only kinda good. The suit can’t make you sexier! (unless you’re into that)

Let’s talk about your suit! You can name it, if the names section is anything to go by. It also has 3 armor and mounts for a weapon or two. It doesn’t count as a vehicle for the No poo poo Driver move which makes sense because it’s not a car. You can give it a Look, a Strength , a Weakness (“loving heavy” is pretty delightful) and then pick a bunch of weapons. You’re basically a 40k Terminator in this getup. 3 armor seems like a lot, and it’ll probably encourage MCs to chuck well-armed gangs and nasty traps at you, but that’s always interesting, right?

I See It All improves your Sharp from 2 to 3. Makes you better at the combat and the noticing.

Chaos Antenna is a rad name, and allows you to perform augury whilst in battle! This has quite a few applications, from protecting an ally to locating someone to opening hell portals inside people, and its why I recommend taking a statline with a positive Weird value. Of course, augury is shaky enough that no results are guaranteed, which makes using the Antenna pretty dicey in a life or death situation, but holy jeez this move is cool.

Well Ventilated Brain is a stat replacement move - roll Sharp instead of Weird for Opening your brain. I’m not so sure about this - this makes the Juggernaut a little too good, and there’s no stipulation of him being in the suit to offset it. On the other hand, it works with the theme of his Sharp being his life-or-death stat.

Spyfly gives you an adorable little drone to scout with! You roll Sharp, and ask the MC what you can see. On a miss, the poor thing gets bashed up. This is kind of like a long-range Read a Stitch, and it might be more elegant if it simply allowed your drone to let you Read a Stitch on something it can see, but the distinction is more flavourful.

You don’t literally Walk through Walls, but you can Kool-Aid man your way through! Well, that’s the idea. However, it uses Hard in a situation where you can’t substitute it for Sharp, and the choices are weird. On a miss, you simply get stuck halfway through, whereas one of the choices on a 7-9 is to be buried under rubble! If you don’t want to be cockblocked with this move, you’d have to take “it just takes time” every time. Not so good.

Heavy loving Armor allows you to stick +1 armor on some armor you already have. Not your suit, though. That’d be crazy.

All Tuned Up rewards you for spending some time messing with your suit by giving you Hold you can spend for +1 bonuses in the upcoming mission. On a miss, however, something’s gonna break. This is a cool move, but I wish there was a little more margin for the “something going wrong” situation, so that there could be more chances for things going wrong. I don’t find Hold moves terribly interesting by themselves, but this one is pretty inoffensive and has a nice catch for a miss.

Special:
This is a pretty complicated sex move. First of all, if you have sex with a PC, their Hx with you goes up by +1. Fair enough. Secondly, no matter who it is, they own you. They get 1 hold over you, because you’re trying to work out what this all means. They can then spend that hold to influence a roll you make when not in your suit.

You won’t hear me say this, because most third party playbooks have loving terrible sex moves, but holy poo poo this is a cool sex move. You risk yourself by leaving the suit and becoming intimate with someone, and you’ve laid yourself out for them. They decide what to do with it. They could loving destroy you, or help you out - but only when you’re at your most vulnerable. The way it marries the theme and the mechanics is the best attempt at a sex move I've seen from a third-party skin so far.

Extras:
One of your advances is to get a workshop and crew for your suit, which is cool. You have a small handy weapon, but its nowhere near as good as your suit guns. I’m pretty sure “Sarge” is a Red vs Blue reference and now I want someone to play this skin as that character. You’re assumed to wear a bodysuit of some sort, so I guess if you want your Juggernaut to be sexy you can do the obvious thing. You can choose to give either Hx +1 or Hx 0 to everyone depending on if you’re a party animal, and then you do large-scale modifications to what THEY tell you.

Although it has some small missteps here and there (Walk through Walls is a worthless move), the Juggernaut is a drat cool skin that I’d be happy to play with. It’’s a cool alternative to the gonzo Space Marine Mammal, and incorporates a theme of being vulnerable outside your suit very drat well. I think Mike Sands did very well with this one, and I hope his other skins are just as good.

Next time: Gladiators, ready?

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 52 minutes!
The Juggernaut is a playbook that, it seems to me, a lot of people really like--and I hate it. The playbook is based around a) rolling Sharp for everything, and b) stealing the Gunlugger's poo poo and doing it better. Yes, the Juggernaut relies on his suit, but it's a lot more practical for the Juggernaut to spend the vast majority of the time suited up than it is for the Driver to sit in his car until he has bedsores.

Heliotrope posted:

The funny thing about the Mummy is that you're supposed to be a stuck up rear end in a top hat and do whatever you think is justified to get what you want, right? But in the MCing advice section for the skins, Topher tells the MC it's their job to "humble" the Mummy, and to base the penalty the Mummy faces on if they're being ruthless or if they're using it to benefit someone else

So the player is told "Be a power hungry jerk! Do what you want to get what you deserve!" And then the MC is told "Hey if the player is being a power hungry jerk, punish them." Seems like a bit of a dick move.
To a certain extent, this is normal. In Monsterhearts it's right and proper for the PCs to pursue their goals, and for the MC to introduce complications and consequences. (But without flat-out thwarting them. That's absolutely vital.) The Mortal thrives (racks up XP) by creating chaos for themselves and others.

I think the difference here is that Topher is saying "I know that this Skin is overpowered, and I didn't give build in a motivation beyond 'be a jerk and get your way all the time,' so the MC should balance the scales by making the Mummy's life extra-difficult."

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Dec 16, 2014

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
In the games I played, once the Mummy hooks up with their soulmate, there's basically no way to socially separate them. The +1 bonuses and magical bag-of-tricks means NPCs and other PCs have an uphill battle against someone who can heal repeatedly.

Gazetteer
Nov 22, 2011

"You're talking to cats."
"And you eat ghosts, so shut the fuck up."
That's kind of troubling. The MC is supposed to create conflict and complications if the PC's lives or relationships are going too well. It's not like you literally have to break every couple up or anything, but it should still be a possibility. Like, the Mortal's True Love move explicitly allows you to change who your Love is if you need to (which is part of the joke with the name). Soulmate doesn’t work that way, and the Mummy's sex move combines with it to create a relationship that is waaay too permanent and immutable too work in Monsterhearts.

The Deleter
May 22, 2010

Halloween Jack posted:

The Juggernaut is a playbook that, it seems to me, a lot of people really like--and I hate it. The playbook is based around a) rolling Sharp for everything, and b) stealing the Gunlugger's poo poo and doing it better. Yes, the Juggernaut relies on his suit, but it's a lot more practical for the Juggernaut to spend the vast majority of the time suited up than it is for the Driver to sit in his car until he has bedsores.

There's plenty of ways to curb the Juggernaut's effectiveness. A good MC will play off weaknesses - "Hey, those plutonium rods your suit needs are out, who's got some more and why do they hate you?" "The rat men swarm all over your and your suit's too loving cumbersome to shake them off, what do you do?" You can seperate the Juggernaut from his suit, or cause it to malfunction, or make him have to act under fire for some things because he can't roll Sharp for that. Other players can coax him out of the suit with seduction or bargaining. Maybe an area just can't fit the suit in. Sleeping in the suit can't be comfortable.

This does sound like what Topher wrote about the Mummy, but it's a lot less effort to make a Juggernaut more reasonable to play with, and if an MC is looking through crosshairs then it's expected. I don't disagree that there's problems with it - one move is basically useless - but I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be.

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Hyper Crab Tank
Feb 10, 2014

The 16-bit retro-future of crustacean-based transportation

The Deleter posted:

There's plenty of ways to curb the Juggernaut's effectiveness. A good MC will play off weaknesses - "Hey, those plutonium rods your suit needs are out, who's got some more and why do they hate you?" "The rat men swarm all over your and your suit's too loving cumbersome to shake them off, what do you do?" You can seperate the Juggernaut from his suit, or cause it to malfunction, or make him have to act under fire for some things because he can't roll Sharp for that. Other players can coax him out of the suit with seduction or bargaining. Maybe an area just can't fit the suit in. Sleeping in the suit can't be comfortable.

Yeah, but then you're doing that thing where the DM goes "You know that gimmick you think is really cool and your entire character is focused on? I'm going to do everything in my power to deny you use of that gimmick." which does not make a game more fun.

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