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Nullkigan posted:Core Command is the Gunbuster one, right? Where Heavy Gear = VOTOMS, Jovian Chronicles = Gundam. I've never seen Gunbuster so I'm guessing. Not really. Core Command doesn't have giant robots, just very, very oversized spaceships. (Then again I'm not too versed in Gunbuster, so maybe I'm missing a connection here.) Kai Tave posted:Ironically enough this is basically one of the lines of discussion that led to the Jovian Chronicles mailing list being 90% comprised of people working to "de-mechafy" the game. "This not!Gundam game would be even better/make much more sense without all the not!Gundams, just repurpose the technology and make better fighters." I really think they should've gone with a better excuse for why exo-armors are better than fighters. Without some kind of fantasy particles or materials (or downright magitek), it comes off as a bit questionable why anyone thought it was a good idea to keep making these power armors bigger and bigger. Or at the very least put them on a different scale than fighters so you don't even have to compare them directly. A bit like how Gundam does it with "Sure, you're smaller and faster than me, but my rifle can one-shot battleships" If I had to redesign the setting without introducing space magic, I guess it would make more sense to scale the exo-armors down to Gear-level and use them as super space marines for crazy boarding action. Imagine if Side 7 was attacked by swarm of space-capable Hunter Gears. And incidentally, that space train/sled system used by the Jovians takes years for a complete tour. That's nuts. Doresh fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Feb 22, 2015 |
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Feb 22, 2015 11:18
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Core Command is more Lensman than Gunbuster. Especially if you look at some of the crazy weapons and stuff that happen in Lensman fiction. Also the role the PCs are supposed to be compared to the Galactic Patrol of Lensman.
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Feb 22, 2015 11:22
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I think the Eoris review is going to be put on hold, because I found something new to look at instead. From their Drive-Thru RPG page... KROMORE quote:Play in Fantasy, Steampunk, Medieval, Sci-fi, or Modern eras. Practice the ways of the Sci-magi with realm magic. Hunt down demons from the outer realms. Encounter aliens & demigods as you explore the universe. Customize unique characters, weapons, vehicles & armor. Explore a massive setting over Kromore's 10,000 year timeline. So firstly, we've got something massively ambitious, likely full of terribly loving written fiction since it needs to span 10,000 years, and secondly they think steampunk isn't a terrible idea. Already off to a great start for an F&F review. quote:Use armor and gear based on your character training and not based on a pre determined class. [b]Use armor and gear based on your character training and not based on a pre determined class. They think that apparently a classless system is breaking new ground. quote:With the custom Kromore three action combat system players and story tellers can quickly add dimension and story to combat all while strategically planning the next move. Players can drive home lethal blows to targets using devastating attacks or pick apart enemy armor with a flurry of attacks. With literally thousands of different build scenarios players will never run out of new ways to defeat their enemies. And they're using a custom system which promises to be completely different from everything else, ever. quote:The system brings extensive choice to players in its uniquely strategic three action combat system blending new ideas with old for easy to play strategic adventures. A massive setting filled with wonder and excitement at every corner. An easy to use game system that gives choice to players. Hundreds of abilities & dozens of character professions. A diverse range of races, weapons, and armor to fit your characters game. You have everything you need to run your epic adventures in one beautiful book. I mean, if it's not all just callous marketing hype, and they really tried to do this, they almost certainly hosed it up hilariously... especially since all this novel content only takes up 352 pages, which is only 50 more than, say, Hc Svnt Dracones, which only focuses on one time period of one setting, has its own(even if kind of bad) system... it's going to be a box of gently caress, and I look forward to it.
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Feb 22, 2015 16:18
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PurpleXVI posted:KROMORE Sounds like a heartbreaker that decided just fantasy wasn't interesting/ambitious/edgy enough. What could possibly go wrong?
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Feb 22, 2015 16:29
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Steampunk is cool when it remembers the punk part. When it's got labor organizers, colonial uprisings, new governments clashing with the old landed elite, and then maybe also some weird rear end laser cannons or something. But just 'gears and laser cannons and oh my Tesla' Steampunk is boring as hell.
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Feb 22, 2015 16:37
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PurpleXVI posted:KROMORE Am I the only one who finds these types of games depressing? Like, they're so excited about everything they think they're innovating, and you just want to put a sympathetic hand on their shoulder and say "I have some bad news..."
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Feb 22, 2015 17:01
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Evil Mastermind posted:Am I the only one who finds these types of games depressing? Like, they're so excited about everything they think they're innovating, and you just want to put a sympathetic hand on their shoulder and say "I have some bad news..." That's why they're heartbreakers.
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Feb 22, 2015 17:19
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Night10194 posted:Steampunk is cool when it remembers the punk part. When it's got labor organizers, colonial uprisings, new governments clashing with the old landed elite, and then maybe also some weird rear end laser cannons or something. But just 'gears and laser cannons and oh my Tesla' Steampunk is boring as hell. I use the term "steampulp" to differentiate the "nerds with gears on their head have imperialistic adventures plus Tesla" genre from the "everyone has black lung and/or syphilis and proto-computers" steampunk genre.
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Feb 22, 2015 17:20
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"Everything is Steampunk if you just slap some gears and pipes on stuff and include lots of top hats  !"PurpleXVI posted:So firstly, we've got something massively ambitious, likely full of terribly loving written fiction since it needs to span 10,000 years, and secondly they think steampunk isn't a terrible idea. Already off to a great start for an F&F review. Any chances of this coming even somewhat close to the insanity that is World of Synnibarr's setting backstory?
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Feb 22, 2015 17:37
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:That's why they're heartbreakers. Oh, I know all about the term and its origins. But seeing it in action is just so depressing compared to just talking about the concept.
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Feb 22, 2015 17:46
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PurpleXVI posted:They think that apparently a classless system is breaking new ground. Hyper Crab Tank posted:Sounds like a heartbreaker that decided just fantasy wasn't interesting/ambitious/edgy enough. What could possibly go wrong?
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Feb 22, 2015 17:52
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Doresh posted:I really think they should've gone with a better excuse for why exo-armors are better than fighters. Without some kind of fantasy particles or materials (or downright magitek), it comes off as a bit questionable why anyone thought it was a good idea to keep making these power armors bigger and bigger. Or at the very least put them on a different scale than fighters so you don't even have to compare them directly. A bit like how Gundam does it with "Sure, you're smaller and faster than me, but my rifle can one-shot battleships" Okay, but by your own logic why not just put those battleship-busting guns onto fighters and etc. etc. The thing is that there is no "better excuse" for giant robots outside of magic, straight up. If you want to play a game where giant robots are a thing then at a certain point you have to accept "giant robots exist because they're awesome, quit trying to nitpick them out of existence" or else, well, you wind up with the JC mailing list where virtually nobody ever discussed the whole giant robot thing (which is supposed to be, y'know, a big-ish part of the setting) in favor of trying to turn it into an even more boring space cold war espionage game. And for some reason giant robots seem to bring this level of nitpicking out in gamers more than virtually any other fictional conceit, plus Jovian Chronicles tried to lend more emphasis to the hard sci-fi thing so it seemed inevitable that this would happen, but it still kind of boggles my mind. And as for redesigning exo-armors to be more plausible by shrinking them down to Gear size, well, you could do that but at that point you don't really have Gundams anymore and JC was, in part, made to be an homage to Mobile Suit Gundam, which is fairly unapologetic about having giant robots be the ultimate weapon of war through combinations of bullshit technology and space magic.
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Feb 22, 2015 18:37
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FMguru posted:Usually an FH's main rulebook is fantasy, but there's a lot of talk about how their breakthrough RealmCore WorldEngine system will soon expand to have sci-fi and steampunk and horror and giant robot supplements (those supplements never come out, the game line and the publishing company both disappear once the core book fails to set the world on fire). One of our bits of coverage was this to an uncanny degree. Don't Look Back, Terror is Never Far Behind, which was some fly by night horror movie simulator crap, had multiple pages dedicated to how smart the engine was and how soon it would be applied to every other genre of film and indeed of gaming itself.
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Feb 22, 2015 18:45
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Kai Tave posted:Okay, but by your own logic why not just put those battleship-busting guns onto fighters and etc. etc. True, that logic wasn't too well thought out. I'm generally willing to suspend my disbelief when it comes to mechs, but JC has this unfortunate combination between trying to be as hard-sci-fi-ish as possible while offering little justification for the mechs aside from "they're better than fighters because we said so". You don't just make a homage of a giant robot show using space magic without the space magic. It also doesn't help the suspension that exo-armor and fighters are so close to each other in terms of size and use. Things might probably work out better if this man/machine interface that started the whole Odyssey was a standard part of the exo-armor cockpit, allowing them to be piloted like one's own body at the cost of requiring a humanoid shape so the pilot's mind plays along nicely. A computer-assisted bullet time mode is optional. Combining this with Kromore, I incidentally have this homebrew setting in the back of my head about a fantasy world finally leaving behind the middle ages to build mechs that need to be humanoid so you can screw over physics with built-in magic (kinda like how giants and dragons laugh the square-cube-law in the face). Now I just need a RealmCore WorldEngine. I'm thinking about a pog-based resolution mechanic (the "Tower of Fate"). It has all the buzzwords you can imagine! Doresh fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Feb 22, 2015 |
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Feb 22, 2015 19:40
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MartianAgitator posted:I use the term "steampulp" to differentiate the "nerds with gears on their head have imperialistic adventures plus Tesla" genre from the "everyone has black lung and/or syphilis and proto-computers" steampunk genre. Does this mean that "cyberpulp" can be a possible nomenclature?
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Feb 22, 2015 20:07
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Spark That Bled posted:Does this mean that "cyberpulp" can be a possible nomenclature? I actually like that. Shadowrun would fall under that quite nicely.
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Feb 22, 2015 20:41
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I actually like that. Shadowrun would fall under that quite nicely. Depends on how you play it. The longest-running Shadowrun campaign I've played in was heavy on the -punk, with lots of emphasis on how hosed places like the Barrens and the Ork Underground were by the setting, and playing up the "faceless cog in the machine of Corp conflict and exploitation" aspects. EDIT: then again, we also played a one-shot set in LA where one of the PCs was a producer/director accompanied by camera drones who would plan and alter runs to be more awesome and dangerous so he could sell the broadcast rights, and I played a gun-adept up-and-coming country singer, so yeah, pulpy as poo poo if you want it to be. Lemniscate Blue fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Feb 22, 2015 |
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Feb 22, 2015 21:06
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Nullkigan posted:
A shameful mecha fan.
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Feb 23, 2015 00:47
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Midjack posted:A shameful mecha fan. "Suppose you were shameful, and suppose you were a mecha fan, but I repeat myself." - Mark Twain
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Feb 23, 2015 04:10
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BatteredFeltFedora posted:"Suppose you were shameful, and suppose you were a mecha fan, but I repeat myself." - Mark Twain I thought that was Benjamin Franklin. 
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Feb 23, 2015 05:02
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It's Kurt Cobain.
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Feb 23, 2015 15:55
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i said that
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Feb 23, 2015 19:23
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You guys are all wrong, I'll tell you who said it. You guessed it. Frank Stallone.
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Feb 23, 2015 19:50
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Kai Tave posted:Okay, but by your own logic why not just put those battleship-busting guns onto fighters and etc. etc. So do it like Macross! Put your giant robot into your fighter plane: two great tastes that go great together. Anyways, MSG is consistent enough about its science to make the existence of mobile suits pretty convincing. If we go by current trends in warfare then fighters become useless in the face of guided anti-air missiles and modern fire-control systems like the Aegis. "Go really fast" doesn't matter much if you can only move in one direction. Mobile Suits were adopted because having thrusters bolted onto every limb helps you dodge poo poo better; it's also useful in space because you can change direction without wasting propellant by changing limb orientation. They were also much less effective in gravity since they were primarily designed as spacecraft. Even then they could convincingly engage armor, infantry, and aircraft. The Zaku is basically like someone took an oversized A-10 Warthog cannon and strapped it onto an Abrams that could fly like a helicopter and still aim accurately while moving. That's pretty loving scary! The Gundam is like that, only even faster, invulnerable to 280mm shells, and equipped with a gun that melts through battleships and keeps on going. And the original Gundam is outclassed by mook suits only 4 years after the end of the war. When you get past Zeta Gundam mobile suits transform into supersonic jet-forms as a standard feature. I mean I agree that Gundams handwave the square-cube law and guided munitions tech we've had since the 1960s. But it's not like "heavy armor that flies as fast as a jet that also works in space" is something we wouldn't make if we had the chance. This has been your Gundam infodump for the day.
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Feb 23, 2015 21:29
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All of them, of course, are highly reliant on space wizards with soul lasers.
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Feb 23, 2015 21:38
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Night10194 posted:All of them, of course, are highly reliant on space wizards with soul lasers. Well, yes, obviously. But you're forgetting the ones powered by kung-fu skills, FIGHTING SPIRIT, and the power of love.
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Feb 23, 2015 21:56
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Bendigeidfran posted:Well, yes, obviously. But you're forgetting the ones powered by kung-fu skills, FIGHTING SPIRIT, and the power of love. My favorite giant robots are the ones powered by kisses from grade-school girls.
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Feb 23, 2015 22:03
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Bendigeidfran posted:So do it like Macross! Put your giant robot into your fighter plane: two great tastes that go great together. Gundam has also shown that fighting around mobile suits is suicide for infantry. Not only do most ground warfare mobile suits likely have anti-personal grenades as a standard issue (like seen in 08MST), but some ot them tend to have wicked weapons just for killing things other than giant robots. The lowest caliber gun we see in use is a 60mm machinegun, mounted in the head of the Gundam and a multi-gun array in the Gouf's hand, which is equivalent to a 60mm mortar shell with a rate of fire like a M16. That's like something that produces a kill radius of 20-25m, one round of which is capable of killing a platoon of infantry in the open. And that's not getting into all the poo poo just getting tossed around. F91 has a classic scene where mobile suits are shooting and throwing out brass casings around civilians, one of which brains and instantly kills a young mother. And then there's the scene where a mobile suit turns on it's beam saber, which displaces the air so violently it throws an insurgent into a brick wall, breaking every bone in his body.
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Feb 23, 2015 22:26
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JC exo-armors are sadly not nearly as ridiculous. I think none of them hold a candle to Heavy Gear's Aller main battle tank. (Now I'm thinking about tanks in space.) Bendigeidfran posted:When you get past Zeta Gundam mobile suits transform into supersonic jet-forms as a standard feature. I mean I agree that Gundams handwave the square-cube law and guided munitions tech we've had since the 1960s. But it's not like "heavy armor that flies as fast as a jet that also works in space" is something we wouldn't make if we had the chance. Didn't Tomino originally plan to have Mobile Suits be space only so he can avoid that pesky gravity, with Mobile Suits being essentially one-man humanoid battleships? And now I'm really curious how this "Active Mass Balance Auto-Control" fares compared to a say a space-only fightercraft that is essentially a miniature Death Star for optimal rotatability. Doresh fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Feb 23, 2015 |
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Feb 23, 2015 22:47
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Doresh posted:JC exo-armors are sadly not nearly as ridiculous. I think none of them hold a candle to Heavy Gear's Aller main battle tank. Yes. Pretty much all the combat was supposed to be space-borne or cylinder-colony-based, so the gravity would have been kept to a minimum. The For The Barrel designs that Okubo Junji made up kinda look like they wouldn't stand very well under normal gravity for long, but seem to do the job if they boarded a High Island cylinder. As for effectiveness, I'd think something like a three-dimensional star fort would be an even better idea than mini Death Star. With guns mounted on the ends of the stars, you could concentrate fire of all or almost all your weapons in any direction, while a spherical shape would limit you to at most half your weapons. And Gundam has used that idea before, with the design of Solomon/Konpei Island and later with one of the major space battleships in the finale of Gundam Wing.
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Feb 23, 2015 23:00
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Bendigeidfran posted:Well, yes, obviously. But you're forgetting the ones powered by kung-fu skills, FIGHTING SPIRIT, and the power of love. That's all just G-Gundam though. 00 had this "We'll show them how terrible war is so that they'll war again" thing going on in season 1. Before turning into ....something else entirely in season 2 and the movie. At least the mecha designs were nice. Doresh posted:And now I'm really curious how this "Active Mass Balance Auto-Control" fares compared to a say a space-only fightercraft that is essentially a miniature Death Star for optimal rotatability. This actually sort of happened. When Char was going up against Amuro at the end of MSG, he went out in the unfinished Zeong. They hadn't finished the legs yet and Char's response was basically "We're in loving space, it doesn't need legs, just put more thrusters on it." Kurieg fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Feb 23, 2015 |
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Feb 23, 2015 23:17
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Quote isn't edit.
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Feb 23, 2015 23:22
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theironjef posted:My favorite giant robots are the ones powered by kisses from grade-school girls. Thank you for reminding me of that. I hate you now. Kurieg posted:When Char was going up against Amuro at the end of MSG, he went out in the unfinished Zeong. They hadn't finished the legs yet and Char's response was basically "We're in loving space, it doesn't need legs, just put more thrusters on it." Actually it was Char himself that wondered about the Zeong's legs, and he was told "we're in space, the legs don't really matter".
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Feb 23, 2015 23:47
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Omnicrom posted:Actually it was Char himself that wondered about the Zeong's legs, and he was told "we're in space, the legs don't really matter". "Legs don't matter in space", they say to the hot-shot ace whose main move when in space is kicking people.
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Feb 23, 2015 23:57
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DigitalRaven posted:"Legs don't matter in space", they say to the hot-shot ace whose main move when in space is kicking people. No loving kidding...  I'm not sure how you can drop kick with no gravity, but Char can do it.
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Feb 24, 2015 00:07
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Omnicrom posted:Thank you for reminding me of that. I hate you now. My gentle way of pointing out that this chat is clearly just about anime now.
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Feb 24, 2015 00:07
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theironjef posted:My gentle way of pointing out that this chat is clearly just about anime now. Shh, don't ruin the magic. 
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Feb 24, 2015 00:18
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08th MS team and war in the pocket are probably the best "war is hell" series we're going to get for a while. Cause they tried doing a little bit of that with 00 season one. Then Aeolia Schenberg happened and season 2 went completely off the rails. The movie just cemented the fact that wet had left all sense behind and were securely in "I'll make a weapon that gives off human evolution as a byproduct" territory.
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Feb 24, 2015 00:28
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So is there anything in Jovian Chronicles about how the vehicles/mecha-scaled stuff and the human-scaled stuff interact? From the looks of it the two are just separate and the vehicles get a lot more attention, but that seems like a missed opportunity.
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Feb 24, 2015 01:00
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The other important thing to remember about Gundam as a setting, is that in the original setting BVR engagement and long range guided munitions are things that no longer exist as a side effect of their fusion reactors releasing sub-atomic particles that eat electro-magnetic signals. Gundam is a strange bit of science fiction, but it's at least internally consistent with its own logic most of the time.
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Feb 24, 2015 01:23
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