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Hyper Crab Tank posted: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. True. I concede the point, but I still like the concept of the skin and there's things it does that are cool without stepping on another playbook's toes.
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Dec 16, 2014 22:53
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Halloween Jack posted: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 what bothers me about it is how he says the Mummy "has" to learn humility them and for the MC to teach them lessons, which kind of makes me think of the MC actually trying to thwart them. If it was something like "Put the Mummy in difficult situations that show her how the world has changed since she woke and that she's no longer automatically on top" or something like that it would be a bit better, for me at least.
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Dec 16, 2014 23:06
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Presumably the cycles would shift forward with the PCs (it's probably best to think about that too hard).
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Dec 17, 2014 03:25
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Zereth posted:Except that it explicitly mentions that sometimes you can end up off-cycle, which by the logic given for the 125-year jumps would mean you end up jumping from that point in time instead. Rather than "whoops you're hosed" like it actually says happens. There was a tacit assumption throughout the book that the player characters would only ever encounter other time travelers who were in synch with the PC's 125-year set of Twists and/or Time Lords who would fiat whatever (and who had some kind of code of conduct about restoring time travelers to their home times). If I remember right they have a lot of doom and gloom about what happens if you end up off the Twists, but the only way for player characters to actually get off them without help is by a magic spell that lets you jump in smaller intervals (that are in some really arbitrary sizes), and they caution you in that spell to only ever jump right back to the Twist rather than make a second smaller jump to a different off-Twist time. The location of Twist Null is always supposed to be the campaign''s present (an Absolute Now) and the other Twists in Cycle Prime are at 125-year intervals calculated from that Absolute Now, which was 1988 when the book was written. If you were running a game set today (Twist Null 2014) then its Twist A would be 1889 and its Twist 1 would be 2139. People in a campaign set in 2000 would have access to 2125 and 1875.
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Dec 17, 2014 03:50
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They could easily have made up some batshit cosmic thing to support the "if you get off the main cycle you're kinda boned" bit along with the rest of the batshit cosmic stuff, though. But instead it's just "You jump forward or backwards in 125 year chunks! Unless you somehow end up not exactly 125 years from your home time." They put all this effort into the "how time travel works under the hood" stuff, why not put a little more in to justify the "fixed" (technically moving at 60 seconds per minute) reference point?
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Dec 17, 2014 04:07
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Zereth posted:They could easily have made up some batshit cosmic thing to support the "if you get off the main cycle you're kinda boned" bit along with the rest of the batshit cosmic stuff, though. But instead it's just "You jump forward or backwards in 125 year chunks! Unless you somehow end up not exactly 125 years from your home time." I'm not sure but I think a lot of this is pulled directly from TMNT comics, so justifying it would be like trying to explain what Darth Vader was like when he was 10.
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Dec 17, 2014 07:34
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Gazetteer posted:When you “allow someone the privilege of lying with you”... Best part of the skin, right there.
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Dec 17, 2014 07:50
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theironjef posted:I'm not sure but I think a lot of this is pulled directly from TMNT comics, so justifying it would be like trying to explain what Darth Vader was like when he was 10.
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Dec 17, 2014 08:11
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theironjef posted:I'm not sure but I think a lot of this is pulled directly from TMNT comics, so justifying it would be like trying to explain what Darth Vader was like when he was 10. Nnnnope. The original Turtles comic never cared overly about the mechanics of time travel. The Time Lord, Renet, and Savanti Romero, time-traveling characters we'll see later- those come from the comics, but they're all wizards. The answer regarding time travel in the comic is literally just "a wizard did it", largely to justify a crossover with Cerebus, but Savanti Romero actually becomes one of the more persistent recurring villains in the original comic. Oh, wait, no, there's one other thing - there's a Mark Martin (of Gnatrat "fame") Turtles story where a superintelligent mutant girl develops a time machine that's referenced in Transdimensional TMNT, but it's too advanced for anybody but her to really understand how the hell it works, and it just looks like a featureless white cube. That uses the "Back to the Future" model, essentially, but the Twists and Cycles and Temporal Energy stuff is pure Palladium. Similarly, the backstories for Radical and Complete Carnage given later in the book will eventually be entirely contradicted by the comics. i know a lot about turtles, okay
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Dec 17, 2014 09:03
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The Twist and Cycle stuff is needlessly convoluted, but it means the book can lay out each Twist in a reasonably concise way and give the players and GM ideas about which time periods are available (and so what you might need to look up). The off-Twist 'oh no we can't calculate temporal coordinates properly we could end up anywhere and anywhen' thing seems to solely allow Savinti Romero's presence. Remember how I mentioned Feng Shui does time travel better? It uses all of the same concepts with a different technobabble behind them- time junctures (in Feng Shui they're 69AD, 1850AD, 1996AD and 2056AD) that all advance at a consistent rate, reached through a shared 'other' place. It does the out-of-time schtick better too, as junctures can close and trap time travelers- you can't reach the Neverworld to get anywhere else. Time Wizards should be up in the next day or so, after I've scanned some art to break up the  .
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Dec 18, 2014 01:51
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Feng Shui's time periods are literally just set up as a series of variant locations connected by chinese hell. Time travel works roughly like Chrono Trigger (stuff changes if dramatically appropriate and part of the plot). That's all it needs to do and I really appreciate it for that.
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Dec 18, 2014 02:16
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Night10194 posted:Feng Shui's time periods are literally just set up as a series of variant locations connected by chinese hell. Time travel works roughly like Chrono Trigger (stuff changes if dramatically appropriate and part of the plot). That's all it needs to do and I really appreciate it for that.
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Dec 18, 2014 09:09
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Yeah, but it's funnier to call it X Hell depending on which culture your PC thinks it is, even if the actual Underworld is located somewhere beneath the no poo poo Chinese D&D Dungeon the crazy wizards built over the hellmouth. I love me them crazy wizards.
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Dec 18, 2014 10:26
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The hellmouth which is a literal mouth, of a giant demon.
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Dec 18, 2014 10:33
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 We read Maid. We're joined by a guest podcaster who helps us process exactly how horrible this all really is.
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Dec 19, 2014 03:56
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theironjef posted:
Isn't there child diddling in that? Like it's Black Tokyo bad?
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Dec 19, 2014 04:07
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NutritiousSnack posted:Isn't there child diddling in that? Like it's Black Tokyo bad? It's all very tongue in cheek about the sex. But you know that Patton Oswalt routine about how talking dirty is way creepier if you rate it G? Like "I'm gonna fill your hoo-hah with goof juice!"? It's like that.
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Dec 19, 2014 04:15
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It's nowhere near Black Tokyo. It's more like a lot of 90s harem animes that tried (emphasis on tried) to use an lecherous underage character as a punchline. It's skeevy as all hell but not actually explicit that I can recall. There were some kinky results on the equipment table, if I recall, and there's the loli character type, which isn't necessarily meant like it sounds to Western ears, but can easily end up unfortunate and creepy depending on your random table results.
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Dec 19, 2014 04:21
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Maid pretty much got me into roleplaying in tabletop games. It holds a dumb little soft spot in my heart, especially if you run it on a PG-level. Is it perfect? Hell no. It's got a formulaic set-up and it can go off the rails pretty fast if the guy running it has no ideas (and that happened a lot). Can it end up creepy? Sure. Can it end up way too wacky? Sure. Is the book super clunky? Oh yeah, yeah it is. But I like the system, on a mechanical "run with it, run with it!" level. I like the randomized characters and I like having to run with what you rolled, and it's not perfect by any means at all. And I've stolen the mechanics (sans Affection and doing stuff for the master) because it's a fast simple system even if it gets bogged down by all the optional stuff you can roll. And I like "if you can explain why you should use this stat for this problem, go for it". I've since realized there's a lot of other indie games that use fast and light mechanics. And there's some games that do them better. I gently caress around with a lot of those now. It's not the best game, and it can be downright weird. But like I said, there's still a soft spot for it.
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Dec 19, 2014 04:32
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You'd have to pay me a lot of money to play Maid, but the translator, Ewen Cluney, made a non-creepy game with the same rules and a shitload of random events called Retail Magic and it's pretty much fantasy Clerks and I had a lot of fun running that a couple weeks ago. Also, the whole d6 only is because getting non-d6 dice in Japan is apparently difficult unless you're in a place with a big game shop. It's actually pretty common for Japanese RPGs that aren't a translation of D&D.
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Dec 19, 2014 04:47
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I ran Maid for a New Year's Party a couple years back and people loved it; bear in mind the opening scenario (happy birthday) runs a lot more like Golden Sky Stories than the infamous play examples - just crazy maids trying to one-up one another to give a boy in ill health the happiest birthday they can cook up. So it depends on your tolerance for skipping past the more dodgy parts, but you can have fun with it. And yeah, Tenra Bansho Zero also relies entirely on d6s and has d66 tables. Double Cross is the only one I've seen so far that doesn't- it runs entirely on d10s.
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Dec 19, 2014 04:58
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Lynx Winters posted:You'd have to pay me a lot of money to play Maid, but the translator, Ewen Cluney, made a non-creepy game with the same rules and a shitload of random events called Retail Magic and it's pretty much fantasy Clerks and I had a lot of fun running that a couple weeks ago.
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Dec 19, 2014 04:59
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That was the thing I noticed when leafing through Maid. You could excise most of the harem anime system and easily wrap it around a group trying to garner favor with some form of political figure. Game of Thrones with paper fans and robbits.
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Dec 19, 2014 05:43
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Or Dark Heresy. Seriously, pkfan said it best:pkfan2004 posted:Is it perfect? Hell no. It's got a formulaic set-up and it can go off the rails pretty fast if the guy running it has no ideas (and that happened a lot). Can it end up creepy? Sure. Can it end up way too wacky? Sure. Is the book super clunky? Oh yeah, yeah it is. But I like the system, on a mechanical "run with it, run with it!" level. I like the randomized characters and I like having to run with what you rolled, and it's not perfect by any means at all. And I've stolen the mechanics (sans Affection and doing stuff for the master) because it's a fast simple system even if it gets bogged down by all the optional stuff you can roll. And I like "if you can explain why you should use this stat for this problem, go for it". It just depends on your tolerance for  stuff, and I personally rank it as one of my favourite systems. Hell, it's the only system where I managed to GM a campaign to its conclusion, and if I have time (and if you guys want to hear about it), I might go into more detail about it.
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Dec 19, 2014 07:26
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Yeah. That was the big surprise for us when reading through Maid. I mean, is it super creepy and weird in a lot of ways? Yes, of course. But as I read I just kept finding myself going "Man, that's a really cool idea. I like how they did that." and it made me feel kind of dirty that I was actively enjoying a book about rapey anime maids. I totally love the system separate from the setting.
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Dec 19, 2014 08:03
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As a counterpoint, I think anyone who likes Maid RPG should be fired into the sun. Edit: like if you think the system is good mechanically then sure, it's possible, but I hope whoever said they have a soft spot for a creepy anime maid RPG realises what they just typed. The Deleter fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 09:08
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Speaking of Maid, since I have some free time on my hands in the coming weeks due to the holidays, I'll be getting started on my writeup of Golden Sky Stories, also by Ryo Kamiya, pretty soon. The difference between the two games couldn't be more dramatic: one is skeevy slapstick comedy with lots of dice-rolling, the other is entirely diceless and it's genre is something along the line of anime Carebears with a lot of grounding in Japanese folklore. Also, since my Monsterhearts writeup was pretty sparse on art I'll be trying to showcase more of Golden Sky Stories' art, not just because there's more of it but because it's absolutely gorgeous. It's still mostly black and white but the general quality is great and the few colored pieces are just wonderful. 
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Dec 19, 2014 09:48
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The Deleter posted:like if you think the system is good mechanically then sure, it's possible, but I hope whoever said they have a soft spot for a creepy anime maid RPG realises what they just typed. Like I said, it depends on how much you're willing to endure, and honestly, if you excise the romance chapters, it's no different than a regular anime-themed campaign. That's what I think, and I'm sticking with it  Ratpick posted:Speaking of Maid, since I have some free time on my hands in the coming weeks due to the holidays, I'll be getting started on my writeup of Golden Sky Stories, also by Ryo Kamiya, pretty soon. Awesome  GSS is definitely one RPG that deserves its day in the sun,
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Dec 19, 2014 10:52
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I had just totally forgotten just how creepy the play examples get, geez. Did I read them all? Hm. Anyway, horns + tiger bikini refers to Lum, one of the main characters of Urusei Yatsura, which was basically the great grand-daddy of harem anime, where a perverted and eternally unlucky teenager ends up being betrothed to an alien oni princess who regularly electrocutes him. It's kind of a sign of an anime fan's age, since it was huge and influenced a lot of things (it's the main inspiration behind Teenagers From Outer Space, an early anime RPG), but mainly was popular in the days of trading fansubbed VHS tapes of the show. If you watch a show where an infuriated female lead smites a hapless male viewer-insert on a regular basis, it probably owes something to Urusei Yatsura.
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Dec 19, 2014 14:13
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CommissarMega posted:Like I said, it depends on how much I disagree and I think the game is really creepy. Sorry! I was hoping to move on to things that weren’t creepy or weird, but fate conspires against me. Apocalypse World Third Party Playbook Party THE SPECTACLE We’ve had a playbook I like, so let’s have a playbook I don’t like. The Spectacle is basically a gladiator - they do performances, and they have a fanbase that they need to appease otherwise bad poo poo happens. This becomes a mess quite quickly, as you’ll soon see. Stats: The Spectacle's stats lean towards Hot and Hard. You're gonna be punching people and manipulating them in equal measure. The other stats are fairly low. Moves: So, the Spectacle's main gimmick is they have a big arena they perform in, and a crowd of fans. These fans have a bunch of tags that represent their surplus, for what they do when things are going well, and their wants, which kick in when things go bad. This ties into the first move, Showman, where you roll +Hot at the end of a performance. If you hit, their surplus kicks in, but also a want. If you fail, all of their wants kick in. The main problem with this move is that your fans have like a billion tags. They can have around 3-4 surplus and wants, and ALL of these trigger depending on the roll. How the gently caress do you resolve that narratively? If your fans have the wants savagery, anxiety and judgment, their entire world breaks down, they begin acting paranoid and hoarding poo poo and they blame you for it. All because you messed up a gladiator performance. That's some serious poo poo and it doesn't match up with what the Spectacle's actually doing. You could seriously divert a story with a bad roll for no real reason. There's also a tag that affects your barter, which means you can generate cash pretty easily. Let's carry on with the other moves. Hot Commodity is way too complicated. Someone else sets up a performance for you, and they roll.. juggling? So only an Operator can do anything with this move. Then the move doesn't really give success or fail states, only that the job can be weird and embarrassing, or dangerous, or whatever. Also there might be a prize? This move could have been really interesting, but it's a clusterfuck instead. Torrid allows you to give up dealing 1 harm in order to get a bonus to Hot. Harm isn't always a big deal, stat boosts are. And this lasts for the whole session. Haha, no. Tactical Mind and Showoff are stat swap moves. Showoff is slightly better but both are pretty boring. The world's a stage allows you to go aggro on people who aren't there via doing something violent, like breaking something. They can't back off from it. It's... okay? I keep seeing the s-harm term and I don't know what that means, but it's a pretty flavorful move. Moment of Clarity allows you to do a "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED" speech and make your fans do something. This is a pretty powerful move, because in Apocalypse World, 50 people is a big deal. It's also cool. I now understand why people in this thread dig through a field of turds to look for pennies. Special: quote:“When you have sex with someone, roll +the number of people you have sex with beyond the first. On a hit, you all take +1 forward. On a miss, you’re too much, everyone takes -1 forward.” Um.  Okay, let’s break down why this move is bad.
This is basically a really clumsy and shallow way to try and introduce a multi-partner sex move. It doesn't do anything interesting with it, it's the RPG equivalent of reaching for the tissues. Extras: The art is cool. The names are kinda cool. The Hx are dumb. If you want to spin plates or deal with hard responsibilities, play a Hardholder or Operator. If you want to be super-hot, play the Skinner. The Spectacle tries for both and does neither well, and then throws in a bunch of complicated poo poo on top of that. Next time: kill all nerds. The Deleter fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 15:27
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The Deleter posted:Um. "I saw Spartacus." "No, I saw Spartacus!" "I saw Spartacus!" "I saw Spartacus and so did my wife!"
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Dec 19, 2014 15:41
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theironjef posted:
Two comments The reason the game is d6 based is because gaming is even more of a niche hobby over there and dice other than d6 are hard to find. Also the name of the super gay shoot em up game is Cho Aniki
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Dec 19, 2014 15:44
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theironjef posted:We read Maid. We're joined by a guest podcaster who helps us process exactly how horrible this all really is. The muscle brothers are Chou Aniki. I want to say the World-Changing Song is a reference to Macross? The Crocodile is almost certainly a reference to Pochi from He Is My Master, a gag/fanservice comic/cartoon about maids. In fact, that comic is probably one of the big inspirations for this thing.
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Dec 19, 2014 15:44
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Halloween Jack posted:"I saw Spartacus." I thought it was a reference to the rave orgy in Matrix Reloaded. Whoops! Still hate it. The Deleter fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 15:57
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The Vosgian Beast posted:Two comments Hyper Crab Tank posted:The muscle brothers are Chou Aniki. I want to say the World-Changing Song is a reference to Macross? The Crocodile is almost certainly a reference to Pochi from He Is My Master, a gag/fanservice comic/cartoon about maids. In fact, that comic is probably one of the big inspirations for this thing. Dear lord thank you. I played that dumbass fighting game on an emulator a while back and fell into a brief wiki wormhole about who those guys were. Insane Japanese Tom of Finland really about sums it up.
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Dec 19, 2014 16:11
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I had just totally forgotten just how creepy the play examples get, geez. Did I read them all? Hm. Great! Now do the easier one. We can't remember the name of the obvious famous harem anime, the one with the space cop, the shrine maiden, the space pirate, the rabbit that turns into a space ship, etc.
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Dec 19, 2014 16:13
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theironjef posted:Great! Now do the easier one. We can't remember the name of the obvious famous harem anime, the one with the space cop, the shrine maiden, the space pirate, the rabbit that turns into a space ship, etc. The Deleter posted:Um. Now I'm not the most educated in Apocalypse World, but wouldn't having a sex move that just allows other players sex moves to function in a multi-partner situation be just fine by itself? I mean sure you have to avoid the battle babe but it's narratively concise and doesn't require a roll.
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Dec 19, 2014 16:13
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theironjef posted:Great! Now do the easier one. We can't remember the name of the obvious famous harem anime, the one with the space cop, the shrine maiden, the space pirate, the rabbit that turns into a space ship, etc. Tenchi Muyo, the show with a million remakes/spinoffs. Also tree starships are the best thing ever, so there.
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Dec 19, 2014 16:16
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Yes, Tenchi Muyo.The Ayeka (princess) and Ryoko (pirate) rivalry is ripped wholesale from Lum and Miyake of Urusei Yatsura. I ran the Guardians of Order RPG for a bit for six sessions or "episodes", and then a second "season" of seven sessions (the final episode was a El Hazard crossover) based on player demand where people picked up different characters. We had fun with it, but you have to get out before the gags wear thin.
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Dec 19, 2014 16:27
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If I ran Tenchi Muyo, it would just be psychic tree space opera.
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Dec 19, 2014 16:47
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