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Ratpick posted:Having played WFRP 2e and heard trip reports from my friends who are hugely into the 40k RPGs, the problem with Psykers (and WFRP Wizards) is that they're a bit too unpredictable. Like, making their abilities potentially dangerous as a way of combating caster supremacy is a good balancing act in theory, but in practice it means that the die rolls of a single character can potentially bone the entire group. In trying to make Wizards/Psykers not dominate the narrative by making their abilities have potentially dangerous they've actually made said characters doubly more important to the narrative, because a single die roll from said characters can result in "Welp, you accidentally summoned a Greater Daemon, campaign over I guess?" And as my friends played it, you resolve this issue by having an all Psyker party. What could possibly go wrong?
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Mar 14, 2015 21:25
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Bacchante posted:And as my friends played it, you resolve this issue by having an all Psyker party. What could possibly go wrong? Everything. Nothing. All at the same time. Wizbiz forever.
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Mar 14, 2015 21:33
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An all-psyker campaign must be a bit like Paranoia.Kurieg posted:Greater Link Spell(Link Spell) Didn't Time Stop used to allow such a barrage in earlier editions? That must've been fun. Doresh fucked around with this message at 09:28 on Mar 15, 2015 |
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Mar 14, 2015 21:52
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Due to being an engineering student with at least two projects in progress and two more in the wings, I didn't exactly have the time to do this like I intended. Spring Break has come around so, I'm making this a personal project, so I hope to not abandon it like So without further ado, here's the Log Horizon TRPG  Background  For those who don't know, Log Horizon is a light novel/web novel series in Japan that has been adapted into an anime currently on its second season. The series itself is about a group of people who have gotten sucked into an MMORPG called Elder Tale. This new world is a mix of their laws of physics and the game's and the people whowere sucked in are now their characters. In a sense, this means that PCs in this RPG are playing people who are playing video game characters. However, things like classes and levels make 100% in universe sense for the most part. If there was an actual TRPG that grogs think of when they bad mouth D&D4e that isn't 4e, this is the game that it would probably most resemble. There are some discrepancies between this game and the game depicted in the source material. PCs do not have mana that can run out and combat more resembles that of D&D style combat than anything more freeform. However, elements like reviving at the nearest Cathedral (abstracted so they just rejoin the party in the next scene) and Aggro (called Hate) are preserved. Since this is from Japan and no official English translation exists as of yet. Instead, this comes as a fan translation so if there's anything unclear or missing, blame them or terms that seems to pop up that are seemingly interchangeable, blame either the translator or the author.  Basic Mechanics I've introduced these slightly out of order as stats and such are introduced in the Character Generation section and not here while more details on Abilities (like what they actually do) are more elaborated upon in the GMing section. This may be based on the original book or the translator's own order. Either way, I'm introducing them in such a way that makes more sense. Rolling Like most Japanese TRPGs, the basic set of dice used are 2d6+Attribute with some abilities adding or subtracting dice to a minimum of one die. As part of this, there's also critical rolls and fumbles. The former occurs when two sixes are rolled, the latter when two ones are rolled. A critical is an automatic success and a fumble is an automatic failure (and the roll is set to zero if some sort of numerical value is needed). Like any RPG, a player is generally called to roll when they want to do a thing. Most things are generally some sort of action or Skill. Skills Skills are what one gets when they take Class Features, Feats and Skills from D&D and puts them into one big pot to compete with each other in terms of things one gets when leveling up besides stat boosts. Alternatively, they're Moves from the *World games. Each Skill has a timing, a target, a range and classification tags in addition to their effects. These effects range from basic attacks to stat boosts to spcial techniques unique to one's race or class. Fate Points The amount of Fate Points a character starts out with is based on their Skills and their Race. Fate Points can be used to do four things:
Side note: Bad Statuses will be explained as part of combat. In essence they are statues that are bad to have. Stats, Scores and Attributes Stats There are four basic stats: Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX), Power (POW), and Intelligence (INT). Strength is the Phyical stat, Dexterity is the speedy that, Power is will and charisma, and Interlligence is the smart stat. Simple. Ability Scores There are a grand total of 11 Ability Scores, each fed by one of the 4 Stats. These are what are actually checked and rolled rather than the Stats themselves. The Abilities are: Athletics (STR), Endurance (STR), Disable (DEX), Operate (DEX), Perception (POW), Negotiation (POW), Knowledge (INT), Analyze (INT), Evasion (DEX), Resistance (POW), Accuracy (The highest of Stats) To calculate an ability score, divide the Base Stat by 3 (rounded down) and add any other bonuses to the score. For example, a PC with a Base STR of 5 with a +1 Bonus to Athletics has an Athletics score of 2. (5/3 = 1.66667 -> 1)
Other Attributes Just like Abilities, these are generally based off of Stats and all can be boosted by Skills or items
And that covers some of the basics of this game. My next post will be all of the different Classes and Races (since I don't think I can fit them here). Pictured below is the cover of the core book and is available from Amazon.jp. The only other books related to the TRPG are Replays which are basically retellings of a session or more that may or may not include extra content. It's a  thing. Edit: Update Ability Scores because I forgot one vital step to calculation. Xelkelvos fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Mar 16, 2015 |
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Mar 15, 2015 04:26
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Bacchante posted:And as my friends played it, you resolve this issue by having an all Psyker party. What could possibly go wrong? My group did this once too. I thought it was a blast. We were basically the Imperial suicide squad, they sent us after cultists and poo poo fully expecting us to die of head explosions slash self-nuking slash demon bites but we just kept (barely) surviving.
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Mar 15, 2015 05:11
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Well, it has been a while since I last did one of these, so what the hell. This is a game I'm a little surprised hasn't shown up here yet, and I'm not entirely sure I'm the right person to do this justice, but what the hell. This is Burning Wheel Gold - an RPG by Luke Crane, the system behind Mouse Guard and Torchbearers, and possibly the most confusing RPG rulebook I have ever read (but only in one part, which we'll take a while to get to). Who knows, maybe trying to explain this game to others might help me to understand the bits I have trouble with myself. Burning Wheel Part 1: The Hub From the outset, it is fairly clear that this book was not intended for first time role players, though there is a little bit of text after a little while that talks about the stuff newbies need to know. It makes mention from the start that, unlike many fantasy RPGs, this game does not have an assumed setting, although the rules are inspired by the works of J.R.R Tolkein and Ursula Le Guin. The game has basic and advanced rules, and the book suggests that players new to the system should familiarise themselves with the basic rules (about 75 pages) and begin play just using that. It seems like a pretty good idea given the complexity of some of the more advanced stuff, but having never played this game, I don't know for certain how good that advice truly is. Within the book, there are four "voices", as Luke refers to them. It might be best to let them introduce themselves, as they'll likely be cropping up from time to time, and I'll be quoting them directly. Oh, and there is no (legally available) pdf version of this game, so this is going to be typed out. You're welcome. First, we have the "rules" voice, which is the majority of the text. Rules Voice posted:Basic rules text is not preceded by any of the Imps. This "rules voice" is used to convey most of the information in the game. The Imps offer commentary on the game. Next, we have the Instructor, Instructor posted:This character indicates that I am asking the reader to take note. The text following him is written in my voice, rather than the rules voice. I call this guy the Instructor. You can call him Luke. For example, "Thanks, Luke, that was very helpful". the Ranter, Ranter posted:This is the Ranter. He rears his ugly head whenever I am yelling about something. This usually comes in the form of harsh advice or warnings regarding the limits of Burning Wheel. Take what he says with a pinch of salt. For example, "I wish Luke would shut up." and the Weeper. Weeper posted:The Weeper is a strange one, prone to outbursts of tears at the oddest times; sometimes tears of sadness, sometimes fear and sometimes joy. He frequently squirts when death or something scary is nearby. "What's he carrying on about now?" After the voices are introduced, the book moves on to describe the flow of play. This is where it mentions the basics like sitting around a table and talking poo poo, what a GM is and who does what. It's about two paragraphs long before we get the Instructor rearing his ugly mug again on the subject of the various bits of paper: Instructor posted:Each player is required to keep a written record of his character. Character sheets are provided on our website at www.burningwheel.org for just this purpose. Characters in Burning Wheel evolve and grow as play progresses, so I recommend using a pencil to mark the sheet. There are a few other sheets used in play to track moment to moment stuff, but they'll be discussed later down the line. Next up, we have dice. In this game, we have a die pool of d6s, wherein generally a 4-6 is a success (or "Yes"), while a 1-3 is a failure (or "No"). You roll a number equal to the stat or skill you're rolling, and the difficulty of a roll is the number of successes you must achieve. The only difference in die target number comes from "shades" of dice - Black is the default, in which a 4+ is a success. Grey is slightly better, with 3+ as a success (generally denotes heroic abilities), while White is considerably better, with a 2+ as a success (generally denotes supernaturally high ability). We can't have rules on how to roll without some idea of when to roll, so the book moves straight on to this: you should roll during dramatic moments when the outcome is uncertain. In other words, if your character has the carpentry skill, he should be able to build a serviceable table and chairs without a random chance of loving it up and building a wardrobe instead, but if he were trying to use that skill to barricade a door as enemies try to break it down, that would require a die roll. Finally, some rolls are open ended - essentially, the dice explode. This typically applies to Faith, Steel (essentially one's courage) and magical abilities, though some other rolls might also count. The next chapter is about characters - not building them, as that's an entirely separate part of the book which I will likely do out of order, but what the stats mean. To begin with, we have Stats, Attributes and Skills, which can each have a Shade (Black, Grey or White) and an Exponent (fancy way of saying how high it is - doesn't go up exponentially). Stats are exactly what they sound like; what D&D calls abilities and what most systems would just call attributes or, well, stats. There are six of them: Will: This is your strength of mind, your social intelligence and your empathy. Most social skills are based on this. Perception: This is your mental acuity and awareness. Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin with the traditional "intelligence" stuff mixed in. Agility: This is your hand eye coordination, and is the basis of pretty much all of the combat skills in the game. Speed: This is your movement speed and bodily coordination. It is typically used for running away or dodging blows, but is also the basis of most movement skills. Power: This is your physical strength, and is largely used for damage in melee combat or for any situation where brute force is an option. Forte: Pronounced "fort", like the portion of a sword blade close to the hilt, this represents your durability and toughness. It is rarely rolled, and is primarily used to determine your health pool. Next, we have Attributes. These are derived from the Stats, and while a couple are rolled, not all of them are. Health: This is based on Will and Forte, and is used to recover from injury and to resist pain and fatigue. Reflexes: This is based on Perception, Agility and Speed, and determines how often you get to act during a combat round. It doesn't get rolled. Steel: Is not described fully here, other than to say what I said above - it is used to determine how steady a character's nerves are and is largely affected by a character's background. Emotional Attributes: Are not described fully here, other than to say that they represent various emotions and that not all characters have them. Mortal Wound: This is based on Power and Forte, and determines how much damage you can take before you die. Skills are discussed elsewhere, and work pretty much exactly as you'd imagine. A character also has Beliefs, Instincts and Traits. Beliefs are a core mechanic of the game which have their own chapter; here it is simply stated that they are a combination between an outlook on life and a goal. Instincts are things your character does without thinking. You make these up for yourself. If your instinct is "draw my weapon at the first sign of trouble", then as soon as combat starts, your character has a weapon drawn. They also have their own section in the book. Traits are quirks and odd abilities gained during life, and are (naturally) described in their own part of the book. Resources and Circles come next; Resources is essentially a skill that you roll in order to be able to afford things, rather than keeping track of actual money, while Circles is a skill you roll in order to see if you can get someone you know to help you. In the latter case, typically if you roll Circles to see if you know a guy; a success means you do and they'll help you, while a failure means you do, but you pissed them off somehow and they still remember... Finally, we have gear and magic. Gear essentially either improves a stat (such as swords improving Power for the purposes of dealing damage) or modifies penalties (such as clothing reducing the difficulty of many social checks). Magic, meanwhile, is just that. Powerful, inexplicable and, if you don't understand it, loving scary. And this is where The Hub ends. Next come The Spokes; the basic mechanics of the game. hectorgrey fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Mar 15, 2015 |
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Mar 15, 2015 08:47
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Xelkelvos posted:Due to being an engineering student with at least two projects in progress and two more in the wings, I didn't exactly have the time to do this like I intended. Spring Break has come around so, I'm making this a personal project, so I hope to not abandon it like I'm sure it'll be fine. Practice makes perfect. quote:Background While I'm always curious about unorthodox (at least to us) rules and mechanics from japanese TRPGs, I really don't get their apparent fascination with MMORPG-centric stories. I feel like it takes the bite out of your typical fantasy setting (even if you introduce the inevitable "If you die in the game, you die for real" and "Mysterious NPC girl that is starting to develop real feelings or something"). Or maybe I just can't see the appeal because MMORPGs are not my thing. I'm weird. hectorgrey posted:Well, it has been a while since I last did one of these, so what the hell. This is a game I'm a little surprised hasn't shown up here yet, and I'm not entirely sure I'm the right person to do this justice, but what the hell. This is Burning Wheel Gold - an RPG by Luke Crane, the system behind Mouse Guard and Torchbearers, and possibly the most confusing RPG rulebook I have ever read (but only in one part, which we'll take a while to get to). Who knows, maybe trying to explain this game to others might help me to understand the bits I have trouble with myself. Looking forward to this. Burning Wheel is one of those games I've always heard about, but could never be bothered to check it out personally. Weird how it's not available on PDF.
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Mar 15, 2015 09:52
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Doresh posted:While I'm always curious about unorthodox (at least to us) rules and mechanics from japanese TRPGs, I really don't get their apparent fascination with MMORPG-centric stories. I feel like it takes the bite out of your typical fantasy setting (even if you introduce the inevitable "If you die in the game, you die for real" and "Mysterious NPC girl that is starting to develop real feelings or something"). They always pick lovely fantasy MMOs for these stories, too. Why can't people get stuck in Star Trek Online or pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies instead of lovely Fantasy Grind Fest 42?
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Mar 15, 2015 10:00
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Kavak posted:They always pick lovely fantasy MMOs for these stories, too. Why can't people get stuck in Star Trek Online or pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies instead of lovely Fantasy Grind Fest 42? I barely count STO as a MMORPG because you don't really need the MMO part for some reason.
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Mar 15, 2015 10:42
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They should be stuck in the Matrix MMO. Then, in a twist, they all realize they are actually caricature drawings on a novelty placemat in a family restaurant.
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Mar 15, 2015 13:15
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Kavak posted:They always pick lovely fantasy MMOs for these stories, too. Why can't people get stuck in Star Trek Online or pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies instead of lovely Fantasy Grind Fest 42? Not to get the anime fight started again, but I'm pretty sure they always get stuck in a Fantasy MMO because that's what .hack//SIGN did and it was the best and first of them (to my knowledge, at least).
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Mar 15, 2015 14:45
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Kavak posted:They always pick lovely fantasy MMOs for these stories, too. Why can't people get stuck in Star Trek Online or pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies instead of lovely Fantasy Grind Fest 42? Maybe for the same reason people play lovely Fantasy Tabletop RPG #83?  Swords and sorcery is kind of an overwhelmingly popular genre for RPGs.
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Mar 15, 2015 15:19
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True, but at least those RPGs have world building going on instead of saying "It's just a video game. Let's have hijinks!"MartianAgitator posted:They should be stuck in the Matrix MMO. Then, in a twist, they all realize they are actually caricature drawings on a novelty placemat in a family restaurant. Caricature drawings on a novelty placemat in a family restaurant in someone's Changeling campaign. CORE Command Player's Handbook Deluxe Edition  Chapter 4: Spacecraft So after learning that CORE agents are glass death stars in a glass world and that anti-matter makes for some of the weakest firearms ever created, we get to the ridiculously huge spaceships of the setting. Will the CORE ships be as overpowered as their agents? Let's find out! We get a bit of fluff about how there are several ways to reach FTL speeds, with humans preferring so called "shunt drives" which propel a ship into the space between dimensions well outside of physics turf. Some civilizations can make rather small FTL ships, but those can't travel between galaxies. (Note that SilCORE handles FTL a bit unorthodox: instead of flying at continuous FTL speed, you have to stop after a certain max range to let the drive recharge or something, during which the ship can do nothing. Most ships here need only 6 seconds, which makes these jumps a bit silly.) And now onto some rules regarding spacecraft design and handling: Spaceraft are designed like normal vehicles and then scaled up. Fighters and somewhat bigger ships are generally built at the Large vehicle scale, while capital ships are built on the Gigantic vehicle scale. As this was before the SilCORE errata brought us slightly more granular scales, CORE Command moves from fighters who multiply just about everything by 10 compared to normal vehicles right up to capital ships who multiply almost everthing by 1,000 compared to normal vehicles. Fighters have pretty much no chance to ever even scratch larger ships, and the larger ships in return might have troubles hitting fighters, that doesn't matter since those big ships get free AoE on all of their weapons. Since AoE attacks always deal their base Damage Multiplier to anything in the area, being a fighter pilot is pretty much a death sentence. (Fighters get a bit of AoE as well, but the damage is too miniscule to matter.) As large ships are built as a single vehicle instead of separating them into smaller sections like Jovian Chronicles did, fighters will have even less of a chance at doing any damage. The only time modular designs are used is when one adds some extra stuff onto the base vehicle. (The OGL conversions are a bit saner in that regard because everything's Colossal.) Now for some space combat info. As everything is on quite a big scale, space hexes in CORE comand are 500 km wide instead of the normal 500 m space. This means you can pack several squadrons worth of fighters in a single hex - which doesn't sounds like a good idea as a single capital ship weapon would hit every squadron in that hex. All spacecraft are apparently able to enter atmospheres and land on planets (did I mention most large ships are severel kilometers long?). Their advanced drives and thrusters allow them to move like airplanes (aka CORE Command uses the cinematic space movement rules). You'd think sticking with Newtonian flight physics is actually better. Next up are squadrons. Taking a hint from the mass combat rules of Tribe 8, fighters and other Large-scale ships can be lumped into squadrons who are treated like a single unit, with all its weapons gaining increased rate of fire depending on the number of squadron members. Members are lost when taking damage, with high ROF weapons being better at this job than slower, bigger guns. AoE effectiveness is also severly nerfed when attacking squadrons, only wiping out one additional ship per rating (which is at least 5 for capital ships) instead of hitting everyone. Dammit, they actually thought this through. You win this round, CORE Command <_< There are also a couple formations to pick from, offering tradeoffs between attack/defence dice and ROF-bonus/Damage Threshold, with a special Sphere formation that trades in damage for a 360° firing arc for every weapon and making attacks from behind impossible (SilCORE vehicles have weaker armor at the rear by default). Solid stuff, though you'd think the Dense and Loose formations would affect AoE attacks beyond the Damage Threshold shift (which doesn't really matter for capital ships, anyways). Before we get to the actual ships, there are rules about blowing up planets and stars, showing how much damage you have to deal to wreck the entire surface, reduce the planet to a molten rock and finally destroy it for good. I'll keep that table at hand when comparing firing power. I would also like to note that SilCORE has odd rules for damaging buildings, structures and whatnot. Instead of having some kind of damage threshold like everything else, they just have hit points. This makes those structures rather easy to destroy (even the smallest buster gun could wreck entire city block), and with enough time, anyone could punch a building to rubble. CORE Striker  The standard fighter used by n00b agents to get around. With 20 crewmen (with about 40 sentient computers to help, or 4 super computers. Who knows), a length of 500 m and plenty of room for lounges and several passengers, it's a larger, more comfortable Defiant from Star Trek. It's armament consist of two linked plasma busters (written as a single weapon entry) pointing forwards, smaller plasma emitters for full 360° coverage, and two force screens (the stronger one pointed forwards, the other one can be rotated around, or at least that what the fluff says. It actually covers the whole ship all the time), with possible extenion modules including missiles or a drone hangar base (non of which has any writeups). The plasma busters are particularly nasty as they have the Disintegrator perk, insta-killing every vehicle that suffers light damage (aka the total damage is at least equal to the target's base armor), and even if no damage is actually dealt, armor will be reduced by a good amount. It basically treats the armor rating like hit points. This is also the only real way those plasma emitters could do anything against a fellow Striker, as a damage multiplier of 10 versus a base armor of 60 just isn't cutting it. What are they even supposed to be fired at? I don't think anything you can damage with those emitters could actually manage to hurt you. The OGL version is much worse, with the plasma emitters 10d4 having no chance to scratch that hardness of 60 outside from a crit and a very lucky roll (even then, the thing has 200 hit points). The plasma busters don't disintegrate, so their 10d12 is a tad bit underwhelming. CORE Pathfinder  A medium-sized (at just 10 km length) exploration vessel, meant to go were no man has gone before and look out for D'vor/Not-Tyranids. Despite this here only being the science variant, it is equipped with a wave motion gun (the "starblade launcher") with which it can disintegrate any similar vehicle and below in a wide area (damage 25 vs armor 15, or damage 2,500 vs Large-scale ships). As its plasma emitters have a damage multiplier of 10, they are actually balanced to be used against itself. Since the writeups here - unlike every other SilCORE line - don't have a column in the weapons list to denote the quantity of each weapon system, they have to give each individual weapon its own entry. As this Pathfinder has two emitters on each side, it has to list them twice. Looking at this planet hit point table, a single shot of the wave motion gun could atomize our moon and turn Earth into an oversized asteroid - at the same time. 7 shots are enough to destroy our sun, and you can totally do all these shots in 1 turn. Truly a vessel made for science and exploration. CORE Explorer  Pretty much like the Pathfinder, but twice as big. Same firepower (with additional emitters), much beefier. Despite claiming its wave motion gun is bigger than the Pathfinder's, they are exactly the same. With its armor rating of 40, it can actually survive a shot of that. But since its emitters still only have a multiplier of 10, we've returned to the Striker problem of only having one weapon that can actually scratch a comparable ship (though I guess those are primarily for anti-fighter duties). Fighter  This cleverly-named fellow (seriously, this is the class designation) is the typical human fighter / small vessel. In fact, it is the only fighter / small vessel of its size and role humans ever build, because the design is supposedly so good it's all they ever need. Every human apparently knows how to pilot one, and even civilians cruise around in a Fighter. They're single-pilot ships (and can have up to 4 crewmen) with just under 200 m in length. Note how SilCORE's scaling doctrine also multiplies the crew (making this require a 10-man crew). They even repeat the scaling effects as "Design Notes" under pretty much every writeup here. Though I guess one can assume that the missing 9 guys are replaced by computers or something. The onboard AI apparently comes in all sort of personalities. Like the Striker, the Fighter can't really do much against fellow Fighters, apart from the rail repeaters who can actually do damage thanks to their Armor-Piercing perk (though AP weapons can't directly destroy a vehicle). That is, if the force screen is down. But even with armor-piercing rounds, this main weapon can't hope to scratch a Striker, whose emitters are in turn a bit weak in mowing down Fighters. There are also laser emitters, which are especially weaksauce. Fighter-Bomber  The bigger brother of the Fighter (man, the humans of this setting sure are creative), being exactly 200 m large. There's also this weird paragraph about how AIs from larger ships are always less human because size equals hypersentience or something. It's overall a lot like a Fighter, though a bit beefier and with stronger weapons, namely heavy rail repeaters and positron missiles. These weapons seem to actually be scaled to damage comparable vessels, and missiles might even hurt the Striker (though there are only 4 missiles). Frigate (Who came up with these non-names?)  The Frigate-class... frigate, I guess, is the smallest human capital ship (2 km). We get two paragraphs worth of how about a capital ship's AI makes the ship some kind of giant robot, and the Frigate AIs are especially young and eager to prove themselves, used to essentially train crews for the older and more stubborn AIs of bigger ships. Despite mentioning how groups of Frigates can "mass enough firepower to threaten much larger ships" making them "seldom ignored on the battlefield", groups of Frigates (who are apparently not even armored all that well) couldn't even threaten another single Frigate. Those ships just have the Fighter-Bomber's heavy rail repeaters and some plasma emitters. Damage multipliers of 15 and 10 respectively have no chance whatsoever of ever getting through that armor rating of 150 (even if you consider that the repeaters can burst fire all day long because almost every ship weapon has unlimited ammo). Worst of all is that they still count as being only on the Large scale, meaning the fluff assumes those heavy repeaters can do something against targets with effective armor in the thousands. Let me make some quick calculations here:
Destroyer (Seriously, what is this  ?!) The Destroyer-class human destroyer is twice as large as the Frigate-class frigate. A versatile, sturdy design with AIs that are either grim veterans or promotion-driven AIs eager to get onboard full capital ships. Weaponswise, it's just a Fighter-Bomber with more guns, and its armor is even higher than the Frigate. That's it. (The OGL version has 350 HP, a hardness of 60 and weapons that deal 10d4 to 7d12 damage, making them significantly less durable. I sure hope the SilCORE scaling applies to the OGL writeups as well. Otherwise this ship would only be marginally tougher than the CORE Striker.) Cruiser  The human cruiser of the Cruiser-class is the largest human warship, racking in at 8 km. Cruiser AIs have been around for up to several thousand years, making them wise and experienced (and not totally outdated, apparently). We also learn that the older Cruisers started out as smaller ships that have been grown due to upgrades and such, making them unique from each other in design. This sounds pretty weird, to be honest. In a sharp turn from the Frigate and Destroyer, the Cruiser is actually a bit overgunned, with every weapon actually being able to damage fellow warships (maybe aside from the laser emitters and heavy missiles, you need to soften the target up a little beforehand). Its heaviest weapons are a spinal railgun and a pair of railgun turrest, who probably designed for use against even larger/tougher ships thanks to their Armor-Piercing perk being a bit overkill for its own kind. It's definitely odd to have your biggest guns armor-piercing in SilCORE because as mentioned, these weapons can't really destroy anything apart from a lucky internal structure damage roll. Not that it needs those railguns against smaller vessels. The writeup gives us the first time similar weapons are actually grouped togther in a single entry due to space restrictions. Progress! We also have the only hardpoint-weapon so far in the form of heavy missiles. Kom'Sov Class-H Vessel  The Kom'Sov are an evil, insectiod race who design ships purely by function, which nevertheless ends up looking very pleasing to other races. I think CORE Command is trying to be the Hitchicker's Guide to the Galaxy here. Despite their focus on efficiency, Kom'Sov ships are less powerful and versatile than human ships, with weak weapons and a rather dumb AI. This Class-H ship is just 1 km long (making it Large scale like fighters), with 120 armor and a completely useless arsenal. Its heavy missiles can't hurt anything shown so far aside from a very heavily-damaged Fighter, and its strongest weapons are 2 flak turrets with pitiful range and only somewhat better damage. Having one of these duke it out with a Frigate would have them trade shots for hours before they just start ramming into each other. Kom'Sov Class-K Vessel  The largets Kom'Sov vessel, at a mere 2.5 km. Apparently, nobody in this setting builds larger ships directly, they just slap more stuff on smaller ones (which the Kom'Sov dislike doing). It's a slightly less useless upgrade of the Class-H. Akhir-Class Fighter-Shuttle  A small (475 m) Orb-Shakra ship, also used by Cyren. It only has one weapon (the "quad starblade"), but that one's a Disintegrator, so it is already better than any human fighter (even if it is only slightly more durable itself). Rajefar-Class Striker  This 1 km ship was designed by Orb-Shakra, but is exclusively piloted by the Cyreen. And it falls right back into the "undergunned ship that can't scratch comparable ships and even has a hard time destroying smaller fighters"-routine. Its main powergun has the Haywire perk, but you actually have to damage stuff for that perk to have any effect. And they advertize this ship as being essentially a big gun with an engine. Oh well, it has stealth, that's at least something. Rajezeel-Class Destroyer  Used by both the Cyreen and Orb-Shakra (with the latter occasionally using these for non-military usage as big welding torches), this is another "gun with an engine" ship that is severly undergunned. It just has slightly bigger numbers than the Rajefar. Zhazeen Multi-Purpose Cruiser  A pretty big - 15 km in length - Orb-Shakra ship usable for all sorts of missions, from trading to combat. And it's one of those few ships where the armor and damage value are sorta in balance. It also has a disintegrator wave-motion gun (why don't the striker and destroyer have one?). It's a bit weaker than the one used by CORE, so you need slightly more time to annihilate planets and suns. Sithian-Class Shuttle  This muran ship is only 300 m in lneght and really only used for transport and stuff, because Murans believe combat is for big ships only. And it's pretty weaksauce, even though it can supposedly pack quite a punch. Sciathan-Class Frigate/Transport  A 2 km long frigate that is just as disappointing as the human frigate. Though I guess having the main weapon able to set stuff on fire is a slight plus. Cwelan-Class Destroyer  One of the newest Muran ships (aka less than a century old), with a length of 5 km. Some variants have stealth, and we a get a bit of fluff about how Murans and Orb-Shakra bicker about who should hand out its stealth technology first, with the Murans of course wanting to get the superior Orb-Shakra technology. And just like with the humans, it's a mere upgrade of the frigate that suffers from the same problems. Wyrcan-Class Cruiser  A 15 km (10 km according to the writeup stat block) Muran juggernaut that is compatible with CORE standards and even handed out to CORE agent crews (albeit with a crappier AI because Murans are xenophobes), leading to conspiracies about how the Murans probably have much more advanced ships held in reserve if they're so willing to give this one to xenos. Games-wise, it's one of those rare ships that's actually a bit overgunned, only held back by the lack of a Disintegrator weapon. Galactic Transport  Your typical transgalaxic transport, measuring 100 km in total. They are able to cover 100 million light years in about 2 weeks, making it the fastest ship around for long distance travel (in fact a bit too fast considering the fluff talks about how getting from galaxy to galaxy can take months. You could travel from the Milky Way to Andromeda in like 2 1/2 days with this ship) Not meant for combat, it's of course not very well armed (though it makes short work out of Large-scale vehicles). Its armor would technically allow it to shrug off up to 2 wave motion gun shots, but their abyssmal maneuver rating makes this very unlikely, as this is one of those games where damage gets mutliplied by your margin of success. Broadsword Strike Ship  This CORE fellow is 1 km in length, largely thanks to the absurdly large particle accelerator that is certainly not compensating for something. This ship actually works as a "big gun with engines", able to damage most frigates (destroyers not so much) from a very far distance. It also has some backup plasma emitters, but those are extremely weak for some reason. CORE Striker, Hunter Variant  I think we're reach or passed the part where the Armory book stuff begins. This is a normal CORE Striker which traded its plasma busters for a huge singularity cannon, aka a black hole cannon. It has the same performance as the Broadsword's particle accelerator, but it trades the Haywire perk for the much better Disintegrator perk, making this overall a much better glass cannon and a straight upgrade from the base Striker (apart from worse maneuverability). They are also used for orbital bombardment, with their scale thankfully making it unlikely to demolish entire planets in a reasonable amount of time. And at least the fluff is spot on this time by saying these ships can destroy entire cities. And just like with the Strike Ship, the plasma emitters are strangely weak, especiall compared to a normal Striker. Destroyer, Grenadier Variant  This model replaces the heavy repeaters with a big anti-matter gun. It deals the same damage as the particle accelerator and singularity cannon, but with a big area effect. It has however a shorter range and only 10 shots, as opposed to the unlimited ammo of the other weapons. Frigate, Assassin Variant  A Frigate armed only with a single phased disassembler battery, a Disintegrator weapon. It is comparable to the Striker's plasma busters, but it can burst fire. The problem is that it has a base range of only 1, meaning it can't hit anything that is 4 hexes away. Most other weapons can fire 5 or 10 times farther. Sure, this might work on much slower vessels, but those are usually in the next vehicle scale, multiplying their effect range by 100, so they shoot up to 1,000 times farther. Getting close to these behemoths would require an absurd zerg rush. (I would also like to point out that SilCORE has this quirk where large-scale vehicle only get this effective range increase against vehicles on a smaller scale. Hex size and movement rates are unaffected, so a Gigantic-scale ship can apparently hit a small fighter from a much longer range than a fellow multi-km-vessel. I hope that's just supposed to mean larger-scale weapons cause so much destruction that they can damage smaller vehicles far beyond their efficient range by just aiming in the general direction and letting the free AoE do all the work.) Onalan-Class Destroyer  Continuing the trend of ship variants with ridiculously huge guns, this is a variant of the Cwelan-Class Destroyer with two giant ion accelerators. They're like the Broadsword's particle accelerators, except that they're much weaker and can only fire every 3 turns, which is pretty bad. These writeups are a mess. Most ships can only damage much smaller targets, with the only exception being ships who have Disintegrator weapons. The only factions with access to these are CORE (who put that on pretty much anything), the Orb-Shakra (who strangely only use them on their smallest and largest ships), and the humans with that questionable Assassin Frigate. Speaking of humans: why is their naming convention so creatively bankrupt? And let's not forget the absurd jump in scale from Large to Gigantic is absurd. SilCORE combat is actually kinda lethal, but only of your opponents can actually dish out enough damage, which the scaling prevents from happening. Without Disintegrator weapons, you'd need squadrons big enough to fill entire solar systems to put a dent into the largest ships, unless they've been heavily damaged before. Even then, a single other large ship can finish the job just fine. Frigates and destroyers are in this weird limbo where their armor is somewhat between the scales, but their weapons still deal fighter-grade damage. SilCORE introduced an intermediary scale with an errata, but I don't think they ever made official writeups with this new scale. Then again, you could probably wing it easily by just dividing frigate/destroyer armor by 10 and just put them on the new scale, effectively boosting all of their weapons and ranges by 10. Though there's probably a whole lot more you have to do to fix these writeups. I didn't even really bother with each ship's various other systems, though at least those don't seem to have many obvious issues. A shame really. Apart from those "let's stick a big gun on it!" variants, most of the designs are kinda nice and the definite high point of this book. (Though I could swear I've seen something similar to the Orb-Shakra ships in a video game or two, especially the Rajezeel and Rajefar) Next time: Threats - let's see how the Not-Tyranids of this setting hold up to CORE's wave motion gun onslaught. Doresh fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Mar 15, 2015 |
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Mar 15, 2015 16:01
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From a few days ago butRocknRollaAyatollah posted:
These guys have been consistently at conventions like GenCon and PAX for a few years now. They were getting more traffic than Twilight Creations was for Zombies.
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Mar 15, 2015 17:07
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Evil Mastermind posted:From a few days ago but
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Mar 15, 2015 17:39
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MadScientistWorking posted:And to think D&D has come full circle and actually again has a dice game. Actually, it's not a "D&D" game anymore. It's called "Demon Dice" and they've pretty much turned it into a stand-alone product not tied to D&D.
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Mar 15, 2015 17:43
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Kavak posted:They always pick lovely fantasy MMOs for these stories, too. Why can't people get stuck in Star Trek Online or pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies instead of lovely Fantasy Grind Fest 42? Because lovely Fantasy Grind Fest 42 is more popular than good MMOs in Japan.
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Mar 15, 2015 18:11
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Xelkelvos posted:Due to being an engineering student with at least two projects in progress and two more in the wings, I didn't exactly have the time to do this like I intended. Spring Break has come around so, I'm making this a personal project, so I hope to not abandon it like I just started watching the anime of this yesterday and now this is popping up? Weird coincidence. I actually quite like Log Horizon's take on getting trapped inside an mmo a little more than .Hack. In Log Horizon, as soon as the show starts all the npcs are basically real humans, which skips out on that tired storyline entirely. Plus, with the revival mechanic of the mmo still in place, even if one of the main character's die they just get instantly resurrected. None of the generic "Oh no! Anime hero #1523 is going to die!" drama (Well, for the most part). More "Oh, Anime hero #1523 is dead. How inconvenient, tell him to hurry up and get back here, I got poo poo to do." Still generic fantasy crap, but it's the little things that make the story more palatable. Also no one seems to give a poo poo about getting home, they're too busy throwing fireballs at goblins. Gotta love those priorities.
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Mar 15, 2015 18:31
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Evil Mastermind posted:Actually, it's not a "D&D" game anymore. It's called "Demon Dice" and they've pretty much turned it into a stand-alone product not tied to D&D.
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Mar 15, 2015 18:31
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MadScientistWorking posted:I was referring to the fact that there is an official D&D dice game now called Battles of Faerun. Its the same people who made the Marvel dice game and the YuGiOh die game. Oh, I hadn't heard of that. Aren't the Marvel and YuGiOh dice games just reskins of Quarriors?
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Mar 15, 2015 18:44
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Evil Mastermind posted:Oh, I hadn't heard of that. More or less. Though the D&D version added an experience mechanic to it so you can have heroes gain xp the longer they're around but lose it all if they die. I like the dicemaster game but I wish they supported play across the different versions so you can have a team with wolverine, blue eyes white dragon, and a beholder.
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Mar 15, 2015 18:51
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JohnOfOrdo3 posted:I just started watching the anime of this yesterday and now this is popping up? Weird coincidence. I actually quite like Log Horizon's take on getting trapped inside an mmo a little more than .Hack. In Log Horizon, as soon as the show starts all the npcs are basically real humans, which skips out on that tired storyline entirely. Plus, with the revival mechanic of the mmo still in place, even if one of the main character's die they just get instantly resurrected. None of the generic "Oh no! Anime hero #1523 is going to die!" drama (Well, for the most part). More "Oh, Anime hero #1523 is dead. How inconvenient, tell him to hurry up and get back here, I got poo poo to do." I'm still suspecting the "If you die in the game yadda yadda yadda"-trope will come up sooner or later. It's just too tempting. And now that I think about it, it would actually be kinda interesting having NPCs as the protagonists, just trying to live a normal life in a world where everything is based around giving arrogant, detached demi-gods an opportunity to get better loot, causing monsters, wars and other catastrophes to become more and more earth-shattering with each passing year. Doresh fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Mar 15, 2015 |
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Mar 15, 2015 18:57
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Doresh posted:Weird how it's not available on PDF. Yeah, I know. The Hub and Spokes sections are available as a free PDF, but the full book is only available as a hardback.
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Mar 15, 2015 19:28
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Doresh posted:I'm still suspecting the "If you die in the game yadda yadda yadda"-trope will come up sooner or later. It's just too tempting. There is actually a little bit of that. The players (called adventurers) and the NPCs (called 'the people of the land) are distrustful of each other at first. With all the the adventurers having just awoken in the game one day with no idea what's going on, and the NPCs just being like 'wtf are these guys up to? What the hell is going on? Agh!'. Its actually kinda funny watching these two bunches of people trying to politically outplay one another and work out what the hell is happening. It makes it feel a little more interesting. The other fun thing is that they try and work MMO mechanics into the story of the world while also teaching the adventurers that they can't think of the world like the game anymore. More than likely it'll give into a couple tropes. But its worth giving it a watch just for an alternative take on the stuck in a MMO story.
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Mar 15, 2015 19:30
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Doesn't Luke Crane have some kind of weird anti-pdf stance or something?
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Mar 15, 2015 19:36
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Can anybody elaborate on the idiosyncracies of the Japanese tabletop gaming scene? I've heard a lot of hearsay and some "Japan is weird LOL." But I've also heard stuff like non-d6 dice being really hard to acquire. I'm willing to accept that it's just more niche than in the West but I'm fascinated in the way it's evolved.
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Mar 15, 2015 19:36
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ZorajitZorajit posted:Can anybody elaborate on the idiosyncracies of the Japanese tabletop gaming scene? I've heard a lot of hearsay and some "Japan is weird LOL." But I've also heard stuff like non-d6 dice being really hard to acquire. I'm willing to accept that it's just more niche than in the West but I'm fascinated in the way it's evolved. 1) Weird polyhedral dice were (are?) really hard to come by in Japan, so most games use d6s for everything. 2) Rulebooks often have very extended "example-of-play" sections.
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Mar 15, 2015 19:45
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FMguru posted:Two credible things I have heard about Japanese RPGs: If I recall properly, their games also tend to be more designed for one shots or short episodic adventures instead of long campaigns.
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Mar 15, 2015 19:47
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Kai Tave posted:Doesn't Luke Crane have some kind of weird anti-pdf stance or something? He doesn't sell one of his games (Burning Wheel) as a pdf, but you can get everything else of his online. As to why, well: quote:BWR will sadly not be released in PDF form. I'm still traumatized by the 10 copies of the BWC PDF I sold that propagated onto every server in the known universe. I cannot be a party to such a crime! Some Other Dude posted:I just want to be able to play your game and not have to carry five paperbacks around and not hold them open while I look at tables! Being able to use my tablet to display tables while doing lifepath work would be so sublime, it would be magical. quote:You sir are playing the wrong game! quote:You do know the that all of my other games are available as pdfs, right? No one ever accused Crane of not being a weird, off-putting dude.
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Mar 15, 2015 19:52
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FMguru posted:Two credible things I have heard about Japanese RPGs: Those are both true. Replays are a big thing in Japanese TRPGs. Night10194 posted:If I recall properly, their games also tend to be more designed for one shots or short episodic adventures instead of long campaigns. This is also true. Not only that, but games tend to provide scenarios that you just slot your PCs into. The downside (from a western gamer's point of view) is that the adventures are incredibly railroady and don't take PC abilities into account.
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Mar 15, 2015 19:53
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Tulul posted:He doesn't sell one of his games (Burning Wheel) as a pdf, but you can get everything else of his online. So his logic is "one of my games was popular and got pirated, so I won't put out PDFs of that game anymore, but all my less popular games that won't get pirated sure I'll make PDFs of those." Wait, what?
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Mar 15, 2015 19:57
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Arashiofordo3 posted:Its actually kinda funny watching these two bunches of people trying to politically outplay one another and work out what the hell is happening. It makes it feel a little more interesting. The other fun thing is that they try and work MMO mechanics into the story of the world while also teaching the adventurers that they can't think of the world like the game anymore. Hey, that actually sounds interesting. Color me surprised. ZorajitZorajit posted:Can anybody elaborate on the idiosyncracies of the Japanese tabletop gaming scene? I've heard a lot of hearsay and some "Japan is weird LOL." But I've also heard stuff like non-d6 dice being really hard to acquire. I'm willing to accept that it's just more niche than in the West but I'm fascinated in the way it's evolved. The non-d6 thing seems to be a hen-and-egg situation ("Hey, non-d6s are pretty hard to get here short of importing them, let's just use normal dice!" leads to "Everyone's using normal dice, so why should I produce other kinds of dice?" and vice-versa). Other stuff that springs to my mind:
Night10194 posted:If I recall properly, their games also tend to be more designed for one shots or short episodic adventures instead of long campaigns. I think that's because these games are not necessarily played at home. Seems to be quite popular to rent a karaoke room for that. And with the usual focus on character relationships and developments, PCs will be done with their arc sooner or later, causing the player to move on. FMguru posted:2) Rulebooks often have very extended "example-of-play" sections. Not just that. There's an entire sub-industry selling books that are nothing but replays (gaming sessions in script form). Record of Lodoss War started with this. Evil Mastermind posted:This is also true. Not only that, but games tend to provide scenarios that you just slot your PCs into. The downside (from a western gamer's point of view) is that the adventures are incredibly railroady and don't take PC abilities into account. Well, it depends. Stuff like Maid RPG is pure improv roleplaying where every player has ready access to an insane random event table. There's also Tenra Bansho Zero, where the players don't have complete control over their PCs initial disposition towards new NPCs (or the other PCs). EDIT: Oh, and players in TBZ are encouraged and even rewarded for taking over the role of a NPC in scenes where their PC is not around (something that's common in TBZ). Doresh fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Mar 15, 2015 |
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Mar 15, 2015 19:59
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Also Double Cross is a fantastic game and everybody should play it.
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Mar 15, 2015 20:02
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Reading Golden Sky Stories in light of the idea that one-shots are more popular makes it much more sensical: at one point I was trying to wrap my head around the fact that your relationships didn't carry over from one session to the next until I heard that it's pretty typical in Japan for everyone to have a character they take from their home games to other peoples' games. Also explains the lack of any real advancement rules in Golden Sky Stories.
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Mar 15, 2015 20:08
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Also Double Cross is a fantastic game and everybody should play it. Double Cross is a game wherein I set a forklift on fire with plasma powers while turning its prongs into giant blades, then pinned two mutant horrors to a wall with it and bailed out seconds before the fuel tank exploded and killed them. 10/10 would play again.
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Mar 15, 2015 20:29
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It is just that calm and subtle....
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Mar 15, 2015 20:43
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The reason why the games are designed for one shots is that enough private space and time to play is at a premium, so they tend to play in semi-public venues, like renting a Karaoke booth for a few hours.
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Mar 15, 2015 20:48
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Kurieg posted:So his logic is "one of my games was popular and got pirated, so I won't put out PDFs of that game anymore, but all my less popular games that won't get pirated sure I'll make PDFs of those." Luke Crane was also silly enough to try and make all his money as a professional game developer. When he was writing these games, it wasn't in his free time or as a hobby. It was his income. Hence why he moved to working for Kickstarter. I kind of don't fault him for not releasing a PDF given a portion of his market simply went and got it for free.
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Mar 15, 2015 20:52
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Night10194 posted:Double Cross is a game wherein I set a forklift on fire with plasma powers while turning its prongs into giant blades, then pinned two mutant horrors to a wall with it and bailed out seconds before the fuel tank exploded and killed them. 10/10 would play again. My wallet is already starting to cover in fear.
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Mar 15, 2015 20:54
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Doresh posted:My wallet is already starting to cover in fear. It's also a game where one of the playable races are ideas. You can play as a chunk of virus that has embodied the physical form of a meme. I mean that in the classical sense of the word meme, not an internet meme. Though I suppose you could do that too if you really want
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Mar 15, 2015 20:57
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