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Davin Valkri
Apr 8, 2011

Maybe you're weighing the moral pros and cons but let me assure you that OH MY GOD
SHOOT ME IN THE GODDAMNED FACE
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!
Just to confirm, is Ron Edwards the guy who's writing that alternately boring/awkward game set in the "TOTALLY REAL AND REALISTICALLY CRUDDY" middle ages that had the questionable stance on women? Or am I thinking of someone else?

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Lemniscate Blue
Apr 21, 2006

Here we go again.
What's happyelf up to these days, anyway? As, uh, cantankerous as his posting could be he usually had some good insights into the hobby.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Never once have I understood any of what the Forge or GNS or Tarnowski (is he also RPGpundit or are they different guys) or any of that stuff is about. It's basically people trying to codify why they are Angry About Games, right?

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.
Tarnowski is Pundit (And also Nisarg, back in the day) but gets really mad if you say his true name, because he gets to claim someone's first-born child if they don't guess his name in time after he teaches them how to spin straw into Amber diceless clones, or something.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

Davin Valkri posted:

Just to confirm, is Ron Edwards the guy who's writing that alternately boring/awkward game set in the "TOTALLY REAL AND REALISTICALLY CRUDDY" middle ages that had the questionable stance on women? Or am I thinking of someone else?

Yeah, Ron Edwards is making poo poo Ages: the RPG. On the other hand when someone called him out on the whole rape thing he didn't throw a steam-powered hissy fit and instead actually went "hey, good point, I'll look into that." There's no guarantee he will or that anything good will come out of it but I want you to imagine what would happen if someone did that to, say, the RPGPundit or James Raggi.

theironjef posted:

Never once have I understood any of what the Forge or GNS or Tarnowski (is he also RPGpundit or are they different guys) or any of that stuff is about. It's basically people trying to codify why they are Angry About Games, right?

The Forge was basically a forum for people to dissect RPGs and discuss design theory in a hobby where game design is still basically in the primordial soup stage and most people just sort of put stuff together by gut feel and "this looks right." Out of it came an attempt at codifying the way different people approach RPGs and what they want to get out of them...whether they want to "play to win" (gamist), get into their characters' heads (narrativism), or do whatever the gently caress simulationism is (simulationism). It's worth noting that Edwards didn't come up with this wholecloth and it's based on earlier discussions from usenet days going back to like 1997. People on the Forge endlessly debated the particulars of GNS because nobody could quite settle on definitions for certain things or what they meant, sort of like how every RPG forum ever endlessly circles and debates things because that's what happens. Since then the Forge has closed down and Ron Edwards has discarded GNS in favor of another framework I don't know the particulars of.

The RPGPundit hates Ron Edwards and the Forge because the RPGPundit is a huge idiot rear end in a top hat whose whole schtick is getting het up at stuff and ranting about it.

Thesaurasaurus
Feb 15, 2010

"Send in Boxbot!"

Davin Valkri posted:

Just to confirm, is Ron Edwards the guy who's writing that alternately boring/awkward game set in the "TOTALLY REAL AND REALISTICALLY CRUDDY" middle ages that had the questionable stance on women? Or am I thinking of someone else?

You, uh...you'll have to be more specific.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

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

unseenlibrarian posted:

Tarnowski is Pundit (And also Nisarg, back in the day) but gets really mad if you say his true name, because he gets to claim someone's first-born child if they don't guess his name in time after he teaches them how to spin straw into Amber diceless clones, or something.

I love this depiction of him.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Kai Tave posted:

The hate some people have for The Forge and the things that came out of it has always baffled me, even back when the Forge was a thing which it isn't anymore despite the way some people still rant about it like it is. It's like, of all the poo poo in this hobby to detest and there's plenty out there to detest, you're (the general you) mad about a bunch of people whose biggest crime was having longwinded discussions about RPGs and maybe publishing some games you don't want to play, both of which you could just as easily use to describe SA Tradgames.

The Forge was what gave us Bliss Stage and the inverse of Rule Zero(i.e. you're playing games wrong if you change the rules to have more fun) I think that justifies pretty much all the hate for the Forge, and Acacia's not far off on the whole GNS thing, it was basically a meaningless set of categories(they're either for CASUAL GAMERS, they're for GROGNARDY REALISM FREAKS or they're for HIPPIE STORY NERDS) to shove games into so you could point fingers at them for being the wrong thing.

I mean, obviously not every thing out of the Forge was Child Molestation: Now With Gundams, but the ones that aren't just greasy from the very conceptual stage tend to be things like Polaris which, to me, are less games for people to have fun with, and more little badges of honour for people to smugly rub their beards about having played, because it makes them more intellectual than those who haven't.

I don't have any real animosity for the people who were part of the Forge, but their products were pretty much the poo poo this thread was made to mock.

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

Kai Tave posted:

The Forge was basically a forum for people to dissect RPGs and discuss design theory in a hobby where game design is still basically in the primordial soup stage and most people just sort of put stuff together by gut feel and "this looks right." Out of it came an attempt at codifying the way different people approach RPGs and what they want to get out of them...whether they want to "play to win" (gamist), get into their characters' heads (narrativism), or do whatever the gently caress simulationism is (simulationism). It's worth noting that Edwards didn't come up with this wholecloth and it's based on earlier discussions from usenet days going back to like 1997. People on the Forge endlessly debated the particulars of GNS because nobody could quite settle on definitions for certain things or what they meant, sort of like how every RPG forum ever endlessly circles and debates things because that's what happens. Since then the Forge has closed down and Ron Edwards has discarded GNS in favor of another framework I don't know the particulars of.

The RPGPundit hates Ron Edwards and the Forge because the RPGPundit is a huge idiot rear end in a top hat whose whole schtick is getting het up at stuff and ranting about it.

The new framework is called The Big Model but I don't know the particulars of it either. My current RPG paradigm is what's loosely called the dice and clouds model, which also came out of the Forge.

Simulationism is... well, okay. The definition of simulationism is that you want the game to create the same things you find in its source material. This has led to people deciding that a game's source material is the real world and rules must be physics.

Personally I think it's a failed attempt to complicate the game/narrative binary, and a better classification is the one that came up in the pre-3E player surveys Ryan Dancey did for Wizards. Add a time axis to it. So you have short-term narrative (scening) long-term narrative (story arc) short-term game (tactics) and long-term game (strategy).

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

PurpleXVI posted:

I mean, obviously not every thing out of the Forge was Child Molestation: Now With Gundams, but the ones that aren't just greasy from the very conceptual stage tend to be things like Polaris which, to me, are less games for people to have fun with, and more little badges of honour for people to smugly rub their beards about having played, because it makes them more intellectual than those who haven't.
If you're going to engage in pearl-clutching over Forgey games, Poison'd is the popular choice.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

PurpleXVI posted:

The Forge was what gave us Bliss Stage and the inverse of Rule Zero(i.e. you're playing games wrong if you change the rules to have more fun) I think that justifies pretty much all the hate for the Forge, and Acacia's not far off on the whole GNS thing, it was basically a meaningless set of categories(they're either for CASUAL GAMERS, they're for GROGNARDY REALISM FREAKS or they're for HIPPIE STORY NERDS) to shove games into so you could point fingers at them for being the wrong thing.

I mean, obviously not every thing out of the Forge was Child Molestation: Now With Gundams, but the ones that aren't just greasy from the very conceptual stage tend to be things like Polaris which, to me, are less games for people to have fun with, and more little badges of honour for people to smugly rub their beards about having played, because it makes them more intellectual than those who haven't.

I don't have any real animosity for the people who were part of the Forge, but their products were pretty much the poo poo this thread was made to mock.

Pretty much everything you've said there could apply to the RPG hobby as a whole considering d20/D&D gave us Black Tokyo and plenty of people smugly rubbing their beards over the proper way to play D&D instead of those casual scrub posers. Sorry, I still think the vitriol the Forge gets directed its way is sort of ridiculous.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Halloween Jack posted:

If you're going to engage in pearl-clutching over Forgey games, Poison'd is the popular choice.

Wiktionary posted:

Etymology[edit]
From the image of a woman clutching her pearl necklace in shock.

Adjective[edit]
pearl-clutching (comparative more pearl-clutching, superlative most pearl-clutching)

(idiomatic) Timid, sanctimonious, or easily offended.

Alright, so let me just be entirely sure here. You are saying that my reaction to Bliss Stage as a creepy, greasy pile of poo poo, is exaggeratedly sanctimonious and me being easily offended? Like, have you actually read the drat thing?

neonchameleon
Nov 14, 2012



theironjef posted:

Never once have I understood any of what the Forge or GNS or Tarnowski (is he also RPGpundit or are they different guys) or any of that stuff is about. It's basically people trying to codify why they are Angry About Games, right?

The Forge was essentially a talking shop about RPG design. Like most things, Sturgeon's Law applies - 90% of everything The Forge did was crap. Especially their overarching RPG theory (GNS for example is thoroughly rejected by everyone including Ron Edwards other, so far as I can tell, than parts of ENWorld). But it was a primal swamp from which things grew - designers like Vincent Baker and Jason Morningstar came from The Forge (and Avery Mcdaldno says "The Forge is the website that most altered my life"), and they supported Evil Hat in the early days, hosting the Evil Hat forums.

The basic premise of The Forge boils down to "We love the idea of White Wolf's 'Storyteller' games, but the rules are like a clarinetist; they simultaneously suck and blow for what they are claiming to do. What would a game that actually does what White Wolf games claim to look like? Let's try and make that." The first actual success after several years of trying was probably My Life With Master. And the inverse Rule Zero is a misapplication of something sensible. The sensible version starts off with the idea "Designers should design games that don't require the GM to fix them in post-production. If you require the GM to fix it in post-production then you, the designer, have screwed up".

Pundit is a "Get off my lawn" blowhard who hates anything he doesn't personally like, and likes old school D&D.

Edit: GNS suffers from being wrong. The Big Model suffers from explaining everything including that 1+1=3. It probably contains the truth, but it's close to useless. And re: Bliss Stage, once again I say Sturgeon's Law. 90% of everything is crap, and experimental games are even more crap than Yet Another D20 Shovelware Game.

neonchameleon fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Feb 5, 2015

Simian_Prime
Nov 6, 2011

When they passed out body parts in the comics today, I got Cathy's nose and Dick Tracy's private parts.
Qelong

Part 4: General Features

This chapter outlines some of the unique terrain you will find in Qelong, both natural and manmade, as well as possibilities for encounter seeds.

Canals

The canals of the Qelong valley not only served as an irrigation and transportation network, but also as a network of ley lines to bind the river Naga and channel her supernatural power into the valley. The destruction of the war has broken most of these canal lines, which is isolating the villages, causing flooding, and destroying harvests. Many of the stagnant canals are infested with swarms of leeches, as well as drowned corpses (some of which are undead creatures set up for an ambush)

Lotus Fields

Vast fields of Golden Lotus flowers dot the valley, growing on the surface of ponds and pools. These magical plants are attuned to the powers of Law. If they are consumed (by eating, smoking, or even just inhaling the scent of a fresh flower), they provide a +1 to HP restored through healing spells, a +2 to Poison saves, and they double the amount of HP recovered through convalescence. It also temporarily halts the spread of aakom poisoning. Too much lotus use causes the user's eyes to turn a golden color, and the user must make saves or suffer a slow reduction in Intelligence. If Intelligence reaches 0, the users Intelligence is restored, but he becomes a permanent servant of the lotus. An entire cult of Golden Lotus Monks has formed in the valley, devoted to using the lotus' power to restore arcane order to the Qelong valley at any cost. Notable counters include:

- Swarms of giant bees that pollinate the lotus blossoms. In one of my favorite bits of imagery, they fly around in rhythmic, unfolding patterns reminiscent of the Lotus itself.

- sinkholes within the lotus pond

- schools of carnivorous fish

- a monk (level 1d4 Cleric) getting high on lotus. He'll answer a few of the PC's questions, but will eventually attack or flee because, you're like, totally harshing his buzz, maaaaaaaaaan...

Myrmidon Track

This terrain is the barren wasteland left behind by the Myrmidons, an army of super-soldiers created by one of the warring archmages. They are literal army ants; a swarm of finger-sized ants who infest the bodies of men, turning them into monstrous soldiers, and use them to consume and destroy anything in their path (they'll be described in more detail in the Creatures section). These Myrmidons have strayed from their original path, cutting a swath of destruction through the valley. The track is mostly devoid of life. Some notable encounter seeds include:

- a cluster of egg-hosts, helpless men infested with the ants. They beg for death, but killing them means the ants pour forth from their bloated bodies to infest any male PCs

- a cannibal tribe. They have imprisoned a wounded Myrmidon, and now worship it as a bizarre idol

- a destroyed village, now inhabited only by the angry ghosts of the dead villagers

New Lake

A pool of eldritch energy created by the magical bombardment of the valley and the destruction of the canals. These "new lakes" are basically there as an excuse for the Referee to introduce any sort of bizarre or extradimensional encounter into Qelong - a portal to another realm, a dimensional anomaly, or...

Ken Hite posted:

... she can just put in a blobby, tentacled horror. People like those.

:cthulhu:

You can also find...

- under the water, the illusion of a magical, golden spear, seen by the most powerful Lawful character. If the character takes the spear (she must make a save vs. Magic in order to decline taking it), she will become convinced that she is a hero destined to save Sajavedra from its foes. (The spear turns completely ordinary and provide no bonuses.)

- in a shout-out to the movie Don't Look Now, a PC sees an image of himself guiding a boat across the water. His double bears a fatal would that is destined to kill him. If the PC talks to the double, or otherwise engages him, all blows that could deal the wound to him are at a +1 to hit until he gets a Remove Curse spell

- some new lakes might connect, tesseract-style, to another new lake. Entering the lake transports the character into an extradimensional Great Maze (same effect as a Maze spell, but with a duration lasting Hours and Days, instead of Turns and Rounds). When the character escapes, she emerges from one of the other lakes scattered across the hex map

Qelong River

The river is the lifeblood of the Qelong Valley, and it is now the primary means of travel now the the roads are destroyed. It is fairly reliable, though a monsoon can wreck havoc on a boat's course or cause a shipwreck. Worse yet, the now-awakened Naga Qelong can use a monsoon to alter a boat's course at her whim. The PC's can encounter:

- boats full of desperate refugees seeking aid. Many of these refugees are tainted with the aakom curse, which can lead to further complications

- a character with low HP or Chaotic tendencies can receive a feverish vision of the Naga in all her terrible glory. The Naga can attempt to seduce the character, bargain with him, or otherwise corrupt him. The character receives a penalty to resist illusions in the valley thereafter, but also gains insight into the river's awakened spirit

- a bird swoops by and attempts to steal something shiny from the PC. What a dick!

Stupa

The stupas are ancient, domed structures that dot the landscape, sacred shrines meant to tame the magical geometry of the river valley. There are generally two kinds of stupas. The first kind are abandoned, still damaged by the war. The second kind have been occupied and restored by the Lotus Monks in an attempt to restore the sacred geometry. Any character taking part in the destruction of a stupa - Lotus-occupied or not - is hit with a Bestow Curse spell. Some unique stupa encounters include...

- a stupa that seems burned from the outside, but whose inner chamber remains intact. Inside is a magical scroll which reads itself aloud in a sonorous tone, accompanied by the sound of bells and the smell of incense. The language of the scroll is ancient and the text deals with the nature of Time, "a god who slowly smothers the other gods to death and drowns their bodies." The scroll takes four hours to read itself in its entirety. Any character inside the stupa who steps outside emerges at a different time then when they entered (anywhere from centuries to days, backward or forward, it's up to the Ref). If the scroll is touched, the reading ceases immediately.

- the stupa has been animated by the magic of the valley! It lures travelers in with food and warm and then tries to eat them. The stupa-monster has Armor 20, 200 structural HP(!), and can make one attack for every PC inside it as it tries to chew them apart. It can be destroyed from within (it's essence it tied to the eye-tooth of a sacred statue inside), but doing so will cause the structure to collapse on anyone inside. It's a very nasty encounter.

- a stupa that shelters a (non-Lotus) monk Vhao Uora (1d4 level Cleric) who will aid the PC's with info and healing if they are not desecrators. A nice break for a tired party, and at least it's not a house that's trying to eat you.

The rest of the chapter includes lists of random encounters made of things detailed in the Creatures chapter, which we will go over next post.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer

Simian_Prime posted:

- the stupa has been animated by the magic of the valley! It lures travelers in with food and warm and then tries to eat them. The stupa-monster has Armor 20, 200 structural HP(!), and can make one attack for every PC inside it as it tries to chew them apart. It can be destroyed from within (it's essence it tied to the eye-tooth of a sacred statue inside), but doing so will cause the structure to collapse on anyone inside. It's a very nasty encounter.

loving gazebos.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

PurpleXVI posted:

Alright, so let me just be entirely sure here. You are saying that my reaction to Bliss Stage as a creepy, greasy pile of poo poo, is exaggeratedly sanctimonious and me being easily offended? Like, have you actually read the drat thing?

You are quoting a dictionary, so please stop posting.

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine
Polaris is great, The Mountain Witch is great, that 3:16 review is not in that august company hot drat.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Mors Rattus posted:

You are quoting a dictionary, so please stop posting.

Not to get involved but man nothing switches my eyes into glazed over mode like seeing the pronunciation guide from a hastily quoted dictionary post. I mean, it's up there with like "According to Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs..."

Simian_Prime
Nov 6, 2011

When they passed out body parts in the comics today, I got Cathy's nose and Dick Tracy's private parts.

SisterAcacia posted:

Boy how about that 3:16 "RPG"? it's not real 40k its just tabletop Starcraft for babbys amirite :downs:

Simian_Prime fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Feb 5, 2015

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



Polaris is great, people who won't stop talking about how great Polaris is are terrible.

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

I had a pretty good time playing Polaris the one time I did. There's a lot about it that could be improved, but it was an interesting time nonetheless. :nyoron:

Green Intern fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Feb 5, 2015

Lemniscate Blue
Apr 21, 2006

Here we go again.

Simian_Prime posted:

Qelong

You can also find...

- under the water, the illusion of a magical, golden spear, seen by the most powerful Lawful character. If the character takes the spear (she must make a save vs. Magic in order to decline taking it), she will become convinced that she is a hero destined to save Sajavedra from its foes. (The spear turns completely ordinary and provide no bonuses.)


I love the idea of a character finding this spear, taking up the mission, and succeeding, never finding out the spear was mundane until the end of the campaign.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

I'm personally just impressed that the game has a metric to tell you who the most powerful character is, sorted by alignment.

MartianAgitator
Apr 30, 2003

Damn Earth! Damn her!
I've been a HIPPY STORY NERD ever since I looked down at my 2000 word character sheet and realized there were no adjectives. I figured out what I like about RPGs is what emerges in play, not the intricacies or "elegance" of whatever baroque system we happen to be inflicting on ourselves in order to game. So when I read things like Polaris and Apocalypse World where the medium is the message, it's a breath of fresh air. 3:16 is pretty loving great at that, too: it models enough of the tension of the Aliens movies that you feel good screaming poo poo like, "We'll never make it!" "No, we can make it. But someone has to stay behind." and doing explosion noises with your mouth. I've only run it once but it worked just like I wanted it to. Maybe because when you handwave poo poo, the system is so light that everyone is just okay with it. When you play, it's really hard to feel bad because you never got to use your Punishing Strike feat chain and it doesn't inspire the existential dread some experience when they realize the referee isn't properly using the Chasing Bad Guys Logarithmic Distance Chart F.

You might feel the rules are stupid but as long as they're easy I'll defend them. For my money, having a fun genre focus justifies rules as light as a puff of air, especially with a fast-action, one-shot genre in mind. That puff of air is a Glade Plug-in. I like the smell and the fact that I can wave it away easily. To you, watching it fall apart in a slight breeze is a turn-off and it smells like soap farts anyway. I got exactly what I wanted out of 3:16, I even had plans to use it to run a splatterpunk samurai game. It's fun and easy which for me means a lot.

Simian_Prime
Nov 6, 2011

When they passed out body parts in the comics today, I got Cathy's nose and Dick Tracy's private parts.

BatteredFeltFedora posted:

I love the idea of a character finding this spear, taking up the mission, and succeeding, never finding out the spear was mundane until the end of the campaign.

"The magic was in you all along, little buddy!!!"

MadScientistWorking
Jun 23, 2010

"I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Kai Tave posted:

Yeah, Ron Edwards is making poo poo Ages: the RPG. On the other hand when someone called him out on the whole rape thing he didn't throw a steam-powered hissy fit and instead actually went "hey, good point, I'll look into that." There's no guarantee he will or that anything good will come out of it but I want you to imagine what would happen if someone did that to, say, the RPGPundit or James Raggi.
He's still throwing a steam powered hissy fit over the offensive stuff he's said years ago so I really doubt anything is going to come from that whole discussion. The guy has the same pastey white guy syndrome as pretty much the two you listed.

Tasoth
Dec 13, 2011
3:16, in itself, is supposed to be shallow in regards to some overarching plot. The point behind the game, which you'll eventually have to beat your players over the head with, is that they are the unwanted. They're all gently caress ups being sent away from Earth to hopefully die because they simply don't fit the current paradigm of Earth Utopia. And if you play a campaign long enough, the characters will reflect this, eventually checking off the 'hatred for home' box. Coupled with the fact the expeditionary force has multiple means to annihilate planetary bodies or large areas of space and the players will eventually gain access to them, Earth is supposed to die. It fits into a similar vein as Monsterhearts, in which the characters are thrown into the roles of narrative important things (Protectors of Earth and Monsters), but in which the roles are not at all what they're cracked up to be.

Libertad!
Oct 30, 2013

You can have the last word, but I'll have the last laugh!

Thesaurasaurus posted:

You, uh...you'll have to be more specific.

Edwards' RPG is Circle of Hands, where the PCs are part of an organization comprised of just them and 2 GM NPCs. In the setting there are 2 kinds of magic, Black Magic (weird reality-bending poo poo harmful to people and land) and White Magic (angelic, heavenly poo poo which is actually harmful to the souls of 'impure' mortals). Normally most mages can only ever learn one kind, but the people in the Circle are the only ones who can master both, making the PCs special in that way.

The setting is pretty much modeled after the most technologically primitive aspects of early Medieval Europe. There are no expansive nations, just petty fiefdoms. Knowledge applicable beyond simple agriculture and violence is almost non-existent, and society follows a 'might makes right' philosophy of violence.

The one bit which caught people off was that the society was patriarchal, and I think one setting description mentioned that torture, rape, the killing of children, and all that jazz was a setting feature due to the brutality of the culture. The original description doesn't seem to be on the KickStarter or setting rundown, so I figure it was altered.

Thesaurasaurus
Feb 15, 2010

"Send in Boxbot!"

Libertad! posted:

Edwards' RPG is Circle of Hands, where the PCs are part of an organization comprised of just them and 2 GM NPCs. In the setting there are 2 kinds of magic, Black Magic (weird reality-bending poo poo harmful to people and land) and White Magic (angelic, heavenly poo poo which is actually harmful to the souls of 'impure' mortals). Normally most mages can only ever learn one kind, but the people in the Circle are the only ones who can master both, making the PCs special in that way.

The setting is pretty much modeled after the most technologically primitive aspects of early Medieval Europe. There are no expansive nations, just petty fiefdoms. Knowledge applicable beyond simple agriculture and violence is almost non-existent, and society follows a 'might makes right' philosophy of violence.

The one bit which caught people off was that the society was patriarchal, and I think one setting description mentioned that torture, rape, the killing of children, and all that jazz was a setting feature due to the brutality of the culture. The original description doesn't seem to be on the KickStarter or setting rundown, so I figure it was altered.

Hahaha, yeah, that's pretty gross, but I meant more that "TOTALLY REAL AND REALISTICALLY CRUDDY middle ages settings that has a questionable stance on women" describes an awful lot of terrible, wannabe-GRRM* heartbreakers.

*And, to be fair, some of the worse parts of Martin's own writing.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Qelong is some really neat poo poo. It's a cool setting and it's obviously inspired and so far it's got a lot more good twists and hooks than all of those wacky, wacky premade modules for LoTFP. Which isn't hard, really, but a killer gazebo? That's cool.

I like 3:16's metaplot and story. I like how you're the people who aren't cut out for this incredibly flawed "perfect mankind utopia". As written, on Earth mankind lives forever and the only way out is suicide and it's boring and "perfect". It's an elaborate form of suicide for people who can't handle Earth but don't want to just step into a death booth. So the leaders of Earth have basically come up with a snipe hunt and treated it with the utmost pomp and circumstance for a pointless game. You can never return home and the leaders are probably laughing at you the whole time for being gullible. Because you're not "perfect" and they are. And eventually you'll get desensitized and bored of the slaughter of (relatively innocent) alien species and then what? Play another game? Or get even with them?

Though I will admit that I don't like the mechanics as much because they are pretty hamhanded and I don't much care for ham all over my hands.

grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.
I swear to god, this exact conversation has happened before in this thread, down to the parties involved and the "you are quoting a dictionary" thing.

I guess what I'm saying is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSKQ3ZNQ_O8

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

pkfan2004 posted:

I like 3:16's metaplot and story. I like how you're the people who aren't cut out for this incredibly flawed "perfect mankind utopia". As written, on Earth mankind lives forever and the only way out is suicide and it's boring and "perfect". It's an elaborate form of suicide for people who can't handle Earth but don't want to just step into a death booth. So the leaders of Earth have basically come up with a snipe hunt and treated it with the utmost pomp and circumstance for a pointless game. You can never return home and the leaders are probably laughing at you the whole time for being gullible. Because you're not "perfect" and they are. And eventually you'll get desensitized and bored of the slaughter of (relatively innocent) alien species and then what? Play another game? Or get even with them?
IIRC, the final secret of the setting is that the fleet is never, ever allowed to return to Earth. when they run out of aliens to kill or are so desensitized by the genocides they've committed that they decide to return and destroy Earth, the fleet admiral is supposed to detonate the black hole bomb in the center of the flagship and wipe out the entire fleet. The whole thing was just a way rid utopia of possible malcontents, there never was any alien threat (shades of Forever War and Arc B from HHGTTG).

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

FMguru posted:

IIRC, the final secret of the setting is that the fleet is never, ever allowed to return to Earth. when they run out of aliens to kill or are so desensitized by the genocides they've committed that they decide to return and destroy Earth, the fleet admiral is supposed to detonate the black hole bomb in the center of the flagship and wipe out the entire fleet. The whole thing was just a way rid utopia of possible malcontents, there never was any alien threat (shades of Forever War and Arc B from HHGTTG).
Pretty much.

Unless, of course, some of the PCs are smart and tenacious and canny enough to survive to become Brigadier. And out of anger, or revenge, or spite, whatever reason they decide to break the one rule that the Brigadier must uphold...

This is a big unless considering that I vaguely recall there being rules for fragging other people and teamkilling.

Hostile V fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Feb 6, 2015

SisterAcacia
Feb 5, 2015
I'll continue the review a bit later, but I just want to clarify something: I bought the pdf after having the game described to be enough for a one-shot game. I'm giving it a lot of poo poo for comic effect here, and also because it isn't just a completely lovely game I can happily ignore. Instead, it's a game that has one thing it particularly wants to do, sets out to do it, and does a fairly decent job... just in a flawed way. It has enough problems that get in the way of being ideal, and that are largely caused through pretension and not wanting to just make it a normal game.

I've run a one-off before, and the players generally agreed: great that it's fast to resolve, and fast-paced action movie explosions. They did not want to have to deal with the bullshit involved with advancing (where getting more kills makes you upgrade so you're more likely to succeed and less likely to die so in turn you get even more kills, and other players have to hope to get lucky to advance (or for you to get unlucky), or wait until you get more injured than them and resort to player-killing). They felt the game was too abstracted during the game part, even after having gotten into it. But they also said they'd play it again.

Ultimately, I don't regret getting the game. But if I run it again, it'll probably be with a couple of houserules, or as a silly convention game when everyone is already low on sleep. It's good, but it could have been excellent, if the designer had been okay with making a regular RPG.

Anyway, I'm surprised to have caused such a stir with throwaway comments. I make no apologies.

Ratpick
Oct 9, 2012

And no one ate dinner that night.
I like 3:16, but I was entertained by your review: through the high levels of snark I could detect that it's actually a game you sort of enjoy but are at the same time somewhat frustrated by.

The funny thing about 3:16 is that I've seen it recommended as the perfect game for running Alien or WH40k space marines which is... yeah, it's not a good fit. The Alien series operates on the assumption that the humans, despite their technological superiority, are totally hosed the in face of an alien threat, whereas 3:16 is about splatting bugs left and right. WH40k assumes a grymdark universe where humanity is under threat from all sides, whereas in 3:16 said threat is actually nonexistent.

I'd actually say that 3:16 is shades of Starship Troopers, the film not the novel: it sets you up with a world that is all mil-sci-fi gunwank and shooting bugs, but there's an underlying theme of "Actually, the humans are genocidal assholes." Others have already pointed out that a big part of the fame's high concept is the idea that the PCs are unwanted dregs sent to fight for a meaningless cause, and supposedly the structure of the game is supposed to bring the narrative towards the players realizing that they've been had and everything sucks.

I haven't run the game at any great length, but I'm not sure how well the game actually delivers that type of narrative. It certainly doesn't have a whole lot of advice for the GM as to how to drive the narrative towards the inevitable "hatred for home" bit.

Rangpur
Dec 31, 2008

That's a good arc for a campaign, but it's difficult to force that kind of progression into a tight schedule, and the system sounds a little lightweight to sustain a long-term campaign where it could happen naturally.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Ratpick posted:

The funny thing about 3:16 is that I've seen it recommended as the perfect game for running Alien or WH40k space marines which is... yeah, it's not a good fit.
To be fair, it's a cliche at this point that forums will do this with any game that generates some buzz. (That is, freely recommend it for things well outside its scope.)

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Halloween Jack posted:

To be fair, it's a cliche at this point that forums will do this with any game that generates some buzz. (That is, freely recommend it for things well outside its scope.)

On that note, it sounds like the perfect system to play Golgafrinchan Ark Ship B games.

LornMarkus
Nov 8, 2011

Hey, theironjef, love the podcast and earlier today I had the crazy thought of sending you guys the completed rules for a fan-made Final Fantasy pen and paper that I used to play back in high school. Any chance you guys would be interested in seeing that at all? It's hilariously broken in quite a few ways but could probably provide some entertaining reading if only for seeing its attempts to reconcile ancient design philosophy with emulating Final Fantasy.

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Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

Is it the Returners RPG? Because that poo poo was a huge mess.

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