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theironjef posted:Bleah, I missed that. Grossest thing we found was her turning some guy into a bug and some guy into a frog and then the frog eats the bug. Even then, I was in benefit of the doubt mode (we've had recent complaints about being too negative) and figured it was just cartoon violence. Dude, don't be afraid of being too negative. The entertainment value is in ripping into this poo poo.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:20
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hyphz posted:But I'm actually pretty glad you thought it was usable without the ick factor. If you do play it, please podcast your game (and do voices Dude it does get points for that Mary Sue thing, that is true. We both laughed at that and glossed over it in the show for some reason, probably because we were both on a runaway train to break this game with Punch Witch (pictured below): 
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Mar 17, 2015 17:23
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) And it scores self awareness points for having Mary Sue as a trait.
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Fine. 'Aroused someone of non-specified genitalia'. Nit: picked!
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Mar 17, 2015 17:35
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inklesspen posted:The game opens with an in-universe briefing document from “The Estate”, which is an organization that “defends the Earth from all threats of the Strange”. (By implication, PCs are assumed to be members of this organization.) Some of the more interesting details in the briefing are redacted and the document is (in theory) intended for people who already know about the Strange, which produces an effect that I think is supposed to be evocative but is actually just annoying. So it reads somewhat like a hypothetical "SCP: The Containment Breachening"?
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Mar 17, 2015 18:56
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Bieeardo posted:Fine. 'Aroused someone of non-specified genitalia'. Nit: picked! Oh, sure, I just figured that might be relevant to the lack of "traditional" sexualisation of women in the images. And.. eh, they're still going in spite of that stupid lawsuit - they tried to sue Disney for including a witch called Lucinda in Sofia the First. I could have seen this as a clever move, to lose and get a judgment that the characters are not copies (that would then work both ways) before Disney circulated the character and it became too hard to prove, but it seems they are determined that Disney actually read their books because a traditionally dressed witch who turns stuff into stuff is their idea dammit. I guess it comes down to whether the fact that someone was getting off on doing something makes that thing intrinsically skeevy or not... Here, have some newly updated disturbing Lucinda, complete with unedited misspelling. Thumbnailed for eww. 
hyphz fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Mar 17, 2015 |
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Mar 17, 2015 19:10
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I love the juxtaposition of a gaping mouth eternally vomiting maggots... with a woman in a lolita dress with a skull choker.
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Mar 17, 2015 19:17
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Man, it is super weird to hear that people are calling Witch Girls a fetish thing because it really doesn't present itself as fetish material at all. The art has no standard sexualization to it and even the transformation stuff doesn't have that "lingering on the transformation itself" thing like in that picture you posted. There is maybe one chapter opening story about Lucinda that is hosed up but that seemed more to reflect that the character is a terrible person than it being about sexy transformations. All the rules for play and everything else was just standard RPG. Maybe I just can't see it because I'm not into that poo poo.
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Mar 17, 2015 19:22
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Grnegsnspm posted:Man, it is super weird to hear that people are calling Witch Girls a fetish thing because it really doesn't present itself as fetish material at all. The art has no standard sexualization to it and even the transformation stuff doesn't have that "lingering on the transformation itself" thing like in that picture you posted. There is maybe one chapter opening story about Lucinda that is hosed up but that seemed more to reflect that the character is a terrible person than it being about sexy transformations. All the rules for play and everything else was just standard RPG. Maybe I just can't see it because I'm not into that poo poo. Sure, it's about the context - the whole idea of a group of people taking a fetish of theirs and designing a kids' game around it, even if they hid it in the process. (I'm told Totally Spies had the same thing going on.) Plus there's the morality shown by the character as taught to kids (Lucinda is also seen in the game shrinking humans and putting them in jars and straight up blowing up another student), and if this has some kind of connection to the previous thing. I'm reminded of the Twisted book they read elsewhere on this forum, apparently by someone who had a thing for anthropomorphic roller coasters (!), where the villain has lots of evil trappings but doesn't appear to be hurting the people they supposedly rule and kills 1 person, while the hero repeatedly incinerates groups of innocent cops while spouting Arnie catchlines. I'm not "into that poo poo" either but I just find the morality of the situation kind of interesting, plus I wish there was a good open-ended game about being magical and mischievous  without feeling you were utterly wrecking society. (Yea, I backed Costume Fairy Adventures. Speaking of which, someone do Eclipse Maid  )There's also the nature of RP - I recall when WGA came up on Rpg.net, someone mentioned they had RPed online with Abby Soto, and her basic attitude was that everything was purely wish fulfillment and this trumped everything, even coherence. They were playing a superhero type game and her character killed an innocent person deliberately(!), but when another character called hers out on it, she was shocked and assumed the player was only doing it because they wanted to play an argument. It's weird to think this might be how WGA was played, although it doesn't come across in the system. hyphz fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Mar 17, 2015 |
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Mar 17, 2015 19:42
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I guess it comes down to whether author information means anything to you and stops you from enjoying the product. Like some people can't enjoy Ender's Game now because Orson Scott Card is an rear end in a top hat. For me, if I found out that the guy that wrote Willow was a transformation fetishist and was wanking to the scene where everyone turns into pigs that would be weird but wouldn't make me hate the movie. I think Lucinda is a lovely character but then I think the given sample characters for a lot of games are lovely. You can use WGA for a totally normal tween witch romp where nobody even has any skill in the Alteration school.
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Mar 17, 2015 20:19
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Grnegsnspm posted:I guess it comes down to whether author information means anything to you and stops you from enjoying the product. Like some people can't enjoy Ender's Game now because Orson Scott Card is an rear end in a top hat. Bugger weapons can't melt steel beams, Ender.
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Mar 17, 2015 20:36
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hyphz posted:Sure, it's about the context - the whole idea of a group of people taking a fetish of theirs and designing a kids' game around it, even if they hid it in the process. (I'm told Totally Spies had the same thing going on.) Even outside of the fetish concept there's some disturbing stuff in there, because of all the "transform classmate into a snake and then put him in a jar" stuff. I get that there is a certain amount of magical empowerment going on, and from one perspective that's totally valid because it's a game about kids with powers, and kids are little shits. In part because that's just what you look like at that level of emotional development, and on top of that because you're mostly interacting with other little shits all the time who are inflicting their own emotional abuse onto you. It's adolesence. Give the average kid the ability to turn someone into a toad, and I'm pretty confident that he'll go around settling scores by turning his enemies into amphibians (and only releasing them into the wild IF THEY'RE LUCKY). It's unsettling because it frames settling real world-grade problems (bullies, mean girls, etc.) with magical overpowered solutions. It's like someone watched Buffy but didn't quite grasp how the metaphor of high-school-as-Hell works. Buffy gives a witty retort to Cordelia when she's being mean, and then chops a demon's head off (even if the demon is a metaphorical representation of, say, being bitchy and exclusionary), not vice versa. It would take a deft hand to create a world where you give kids real, reality-altering magic (beyond the kind of playing pranks spells that the kids at, say, Hogwarts tend to use) and it doesn't become a moral quagmire real fast. A defter hand than writes Witch Girl Adventures, to say the least.
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Mar 17, 2015 21:32
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kaynorr posted:Even outside of the fetish concept there's some disturbing stuff in there, because of all the "transform classmate into a snake and then put him in a jar" stuff. I get that there is a certain amount of magical empowerment going on, and from one perspective that's totally valid because it's a game about kids with powers, and kids are little shits. In part because that's just what you look like at that level of emotional development, and on top of that because you're mostly interacting with other little shits all the time who are inflicting their own emotional abuse onto you. It's adolesence. Give the average kid the ability to turn someone into a toad, and I'm pretty confident that he'll go around settling scores by turning his enemies into amphibians (and only releasing them into the wild IF THEY'RE LUCKY). Yeah, I'd say the failing of the book is that it presents itself as a cartoon with real consequences for the foes but not the heroes. If they had genuinely adapted to the cartoon level, you could turn your classmates into frogs all day, because they pop back into being a human while the scene changes. If they had adapted it as a moral swamp, you could kill the bullies you encounter on the street, but then you're going to magic prison and poo poo, so don't. Instead, it's this weird middle ground where it's implied they just wander around killing people on a whim and no one says anything or does anything. It's especially notable since you're supposed to be playing people that are currently learning magic, which means there's experts out there way better than you, and the book is so adamant about not addressing adults that it doesn't even take a brief digression to say "Hey, your principal will straight up strip your magic powers if you use them wrong" or anything. Honestly it's closer to Harry Potter than it wants to admit. Potter had a structure of laws and rules and poo poo, but it was all conveniently ignorable about 75% of the time, leading to students just trying constantly to kill each other, and teachers teaching them how, generally with no more serious repercussions than some bullshit house points.
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Mar 17, 2015 22:05
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hyphz posted:Sure, it's about the context - the whole idea of a group of people taking a fetish of theirs and designing a kids' game around it, even if they hid it in the process. (I'm told Totally Spies had the same thing going on.)
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Mar 18, 2015 00:14
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theironjef posted:Yeah, I'd say the failing of the book is that it presents itself as a cartoon with real consequences for the foes but not the heroes. If they had genuinely adapted to the cartoon level, you could turn your classmates into frogs all day, because they pop back into being a human while the scene changes. That was one thing that made Lucinda's antics more disturbing, although I'm not sure if it was intended: that business about reversing magical death being a much easier spell than reversing natural death. So if you hit someone with a lightning bolt, you could bring them back, but if you shrink them and then step on them - well, they were shrunk by magic but killed by physics. So the implication is that she's going out of her way to make sure her victims can't be brought back, even by magic experts. quote:Honestly it's closer to Harry Potter than it wants to admit. Potter had a structure of laws and rules and poo poo, but it was all conveniently ignorable about 75% of the time, leading to students just trying constantly to kill each other, and teachers teaching them how, generally with no more serious repercussions than some bullshit house points. That's a really good point. Why the heck wasn't Voldemort chugging Polyjuice Potion anyway?
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Mar 18, 2015 00:18
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I was exposed to the Witch Girls creators' terrible poo poo on the internet (thanks, TVTropes  ) before ever knowing there was a RPG. Hundreds of ugly, terrible pictures of Lucinda murdering or abusing people, and it may not be immediately obvious that the game is built to cater to that, but the game is totally built to cater to that.JohnnyCanuck posted:Derail, but do you have any links on this? My nieces used to watch it and it seemed harmless enough? It's hard to find any links that aren't people spooging about how episode X contained their favorite fetish or how they got into a certain fetish because of episode Y. This sentence was not written to cater to anybody's spooging fetish but I guess it's too late now.
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Mar 18, 2015 01:04
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hyphz posted:Oh, sure, I just figured that might be relevant to the lack of "traditional" sexualisation of women in the images. Sorry about the snark, lovely mood earlier. I backed Costume Fairy Adventures too. I think there's a definite cartoonish feeling to the mayhem there, that something like WGA with its witches as secret masters and what feels like straight animosity toward mundanes lacks. The fairies being presented as... kind of dumb and appetitive, but essentially good-natured certainly helps. Alien Rope Burn posted:It's hard to find any links that aren't people spooging about how episode X contained their favorite fetish or how they got into a certain fetish because of episode Y. I watched a couple of episodes on Youtube because someone pointed that stuff out to me. Looking for it, it definitely isn't impossible to find. I do think it's more an artifact of adolescent boys turning on at the drop of a hat a block away, than a cabal of fetishists getting a vehicle for their kink greenlit. The cartoon girls in fairly form-fitting garments probably didn't hurt.
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Mar 18, 2015 05:34
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Bieeardo posted:I watched a couple of episodes on Youtube because someone pointed that stuff out to me. Looking for it, it definitely isn't impossible to find. I do think it's more an artifact of adolescent boys turning on at the drop of a hat a block away, than a cabal of fetishists getting a vehicle for their kink greenlit. The cartoon girls in fairly form-fitting garments probably didn't hurt. Looking at the results of googling "Totally Spies is a fetish thing" tells me that at the very least, it's viewed as a fetish thing by the sort of people that view everything as a fetish thing, namely tropers and fic writers. The first thing i opened had the phrase "This troper melted when Clover's feet were out in the following episodes" and I assume Clover must be one of the totally spies, but I'm guessing that troper melts when you can like see one of the Burger King Kid's Club character's feet, too.
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Mar 18, 2015 05:58
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theironjef posted:Yeah, I'd say the failing of the book is that it presents itself as a cartoon with real consequences for the foes but not the heroes. If they had genuinely adapted to the cartoon level, you could turn your classmates into frogs all day, because they pop back into being a human while the scene changes. If they had adapted it as a moral swamp, you could kill the bullies you encounter on the street, but then you're going to magic prison and poo poo, so don't. Instead, it's this weird middle ground where it's implied they just wander around killing people on a whim and no one says anything or does anything. It's especially notable since you're supposed to be playing people that are currently learning magic, which means there's experts out there way better than you, and the book is so adamant about not addressing adults that it doesn't even take a brief digression to say "Hey, your principal will straight up strip your magic powers if you use them wrong" or anything.
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Mar 18, 2015 11:52
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Zereth posted:And as such, it's presenting a setting where the witch hunters/anti-magic government agency/whatever else there was in the antagonists chapter are firmly in the right. These people are dangerous psychopaths and need to be stopped. So basically I should run a game set in the Harry Potter books using Dark Heresy.
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Mar 18, 2015 12:28
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Forums Terrorist posted:So basically I should run a game set in the Harry Potter books using Dark Heresy.
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Mar 18, 2015 12:59
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It isn't hard to reframe the Dursleys as trying to save a young relation from the drugs-and-gangs analogue that murdered his parents. Why else would they drag Harry out to that cabin on the Coast of Buttfuck, where the cartel's enforcer disfigured their son for their troubles?
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Mar 18, 2015 15:54
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Zereth posted:And as such, it's presenting a setting where the witch hunters/anti-magic government agency/whatever else there was in the antagonists chapter are firmly in the right. These people are dangerous psychopaths and need to be stopped. Turns out that System Mastery has solved that problem for us. DAME HILDA PUNCHWITCH (Note: once you get around the awful editing, making Witch Girls Adventures characters is actually quite easy and fun. Who'd a thunk it?) Type: Outsider Body d8 -> d10 (Outsider) -> d12 (Jock) -> d12+1 (Immortal-Kin) Mind d6 Senses d6 Will d6 Social d4 Magic d8 Wealth Class: From the block (+2 Life, +1 Reflex, 1 Free rank in Fighting/Hide, Wealth 2, Savings 20) Skills Mundane 25: Hide 6+1 From the Block, Fighting 6+1 From the Block, Basics 3 (Free) +1, Athletics 6, Leader 6 Magic 10: Casting 6, Focus 4 Traits: Jock, Goody-Goody Heritage: Immortal-Kin (ignore 3 damage and boost body type) Knacks: Wards (ignore 2 damage), Sweet-Tooth Wand: modification: Aligned Good, Weapon (+1 to resist evil spells, +2 to hand to hand damage, cost 4) Life points: Max body * 2 +2 from the block +2 athletics 6 = 30 Reflex: Max body + 3 + 1 from the block = 17 Actions: 3 Resist Magic: Magic + 3 = 16, +1 Goody-goody +1 wand vs wicked spells = 18 Zap: Magic*2 = 26 Here's the good news: we're pretty safe from Lucinda. She has casting d10+7 plus Wicked, so she'll roll d10+8 to cast stupid transformation stuff on us. (d10+7 is obviously selected so she can't fail to transform non-Witches). Since our resist against wicked spells is 18, she has to roll a 10, and by using some shield equipment we could boost this to 19 and be safe. Even better news is that we probably won't have to; we have +6 to hide. Lucinda has no perception skills and her Senses is a d4, so we can surprise her whenever we like. Even if we don't surprise her, initiative order is governed by raw Reflex, with no rolling. Ours is 17. Hers is 7. So, Lucinda has all kinds of weird magic resistance stuff geared up (she has Resist 15, again obviously just out of reach of a starting PC with a maximum of d8+6), but fortunately we're not going to bother with that. We're going to jump in with the blunt end of our wand. We roll fighting at d12+8 (body + fighting + 1 for goody-goody because smashing Lucinda's head in is unquestionably heroic). We have to beat her reflex. It's 7. We hit. 3 times. Our base hand-to-hand damage for d12+1 Body is 12, +2 for a punch action, +2 for the weaponised wand, +4 for Fighting 6, so 20. Lucinda also has some mundane damage resistance: her Wards ignore 2 damage, and her skull bracelet ignores 3. We deal 15 damage, and because of our 3 actions, we'll deal 45. Lucinda has 8 life points. Our starting character pounds the co-authoress's psychopathic Mary Sue into jam in 10 seconds. Even magical protection doesn't save her. Her protection MTR is 2, but because she's Diabolic and protecting yourself isn't evil, her shield spell would subtract 5 damage - she'll still take 10 from each hit for 30 total. There's also a spell that makes you immune to the next physical attack against you, although she can't cast it, but if she somehow did she'd ignore the first 10 and still take 20. So cheers for System Mastery, you may have saved the world!
hyphz fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 16:48
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Dude, thanks for that. That's deeply therapeutic. Note that Dame Hilda has no XP, that's a starting character. Also nice is that the gross transformation monster can't be rezzed, because pounding her smug face in with Punchwitch means she died of natural causes. The doctors will shrug and write down Fist Poisoning under cause of death, then check No in the "Is it a shame" box.
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Mar 18, 2015 17:43
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theironjef posted:Looking at the results of googling "Totally Spies is a fetish thing" tells me that at the very least, it's viewed as a fetish thing by the sort of people that view everything as a fetish thing, namely tropers and fic writers. The first thing i opened had the phrase "This troper melted when Clover's feet were out in the following episodes" and I assume Clover must be one of the totally spies, but I'm guessing that troper melts when you can like see one of the Burger King Kid's Club character's feet, too. Generally speaking it isn't so much any specific thing they did that made people arrive at the conclusion that it was a fetish show, but the fact that by the time it was over they'd covered so many very specific fetishes that it almost had to be intentional.
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Mar 18, 2015 17:55
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Rand Brittain posted:Generally speaking it isn't so much any specific thing they did that made people arrive at the conclusion that it was a fetish show, but the fact that by the time it was over they'd covered so many very specific fetishes that it almost had to be intentional. Or just that any time any traditional cartoon peril happens to a cartoon teenager in a catsuit, that's probably gonna be a fetish for someone. I mean getting tied up, inflated, tickled on the feet, treated as food, cross-dressed, bulked up into a muscle monster, force-fed, diapered, and shrunk down are all things that happened to Bugs Bunny, which was probably not made for rabbit fetishists. Sure, it definitely created rabbit fetishists. I think just TVtropes and the internet have made every drat thing into a codified fetish and now you can't make anything without people either reading it as a fetish thing (Tolkien mentions swamps a few times, he's obviously into the fake drowning/mud sinking fetish!) or as obvious winky gay coding (Superwholock). Wait, why am I defending a show I've never seen that necessitates the description "teenager in a catsuit?" It probably is a bunch of jokes about fetishism.
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Mar 18, 2015 18:09
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Hilda needs to be submitted to that game's forums just to cause rage and despair.
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Mar 18, 2015 18:27
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hyphz posted:Turns out that System Mastery has solved that problem for us. This makes me happy. You ended up statting her out almost exactly the way I did except I had taken Tough instead of Goody Goody since it gives a universal +1 to resist magic instead of just harmful spells. Also good to see you found the Sweet Tooth drawback is the most obviously able to be ignored. Didn't mention it in the podcast but it's the only one of the Negative Knacks that can be entirely obviated if you get one rank in summoning since that lets you summon candy. It's also fun to note that the sample combat takes place without the aid of magic. If we get rank 3 in Alteration, we can cast Grow on ourselves to get up to the d12+2 Body die type which is important since that is the break point where we gain yet another action. So if we Hulk out, we can get one more punch in for 60 total damage. It is worth noting that a Dragon, one of the big bads of the monster section, has 34 HP. edit: Actually, it looks like we do even more. The damage calculation should be base damage 12 + 6 for Fighting + 4 for punch action (every 3 ranks in fighting gives +1 damage) + 2 for wand = 24 damage per punch or the equivalent of a Rank 6 damage spell, the highest rank given in the game. Grnegsnspm fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 18:27
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theironjef posted:Or just that any time any traditional cartoon peril happens to a cartoon teenager in a catsuit, that's probably gonna be a fetish for someone. I mean getting tied up, inflated, tickled on the feet, treated as food, cross-dressed, bulked up into a muscle monster, force-fed, diapered, and shrunk down are all things that happened to Bugs Bunny, which was probably not made for rabbit fetishists. Sure, it definitely created rabbit fetishists. I think just TVtropes and the internet have made every drat thing into a codified fetish and now you can't make anything without people either reading it as a fetish thing (Tolkien mentions swamps a few times, he's obviously into the fake drowning/mud sinking fetish!) or as obvious winky gay coding (Superwholock). Tolkien was obviously catering to the big, hairy feet fetish demographic. And I'm not so sure either about this show. If they really had some kind of fetish agenda going on, wouldn't it have made more sense for them to focus on their kinks, instead of seemingly catering to everyone? Or did they only hire guys who had yet uncovered fetishes? hyphz posted:Turns out that System Mastery has solved that problem for us. There is still justice in the world! Doresh fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 18:42
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Doresh posted:Or did they only hire guys who had yet uncovered fetishes? In the animation industry, that falls under "more likely than not".  Whether or not it intended to cover a bunch of fetishes really can't be answered, but ultimately it did in the way other cartoons generally don't. Yes, a lot of cartoons have weird stuff you can read into them. With some of the old Warner Brothers cartoons, there are moments were no reading is required - there are straight-up jokes for adults tucked away in there. ("Stick em up or I'll blow your brains out!" "Now that's mighty neighborly of ya!") But there are many, many cartoons dropped on us from year to year, and Totally Spies has stood out. If it was unintentional or internet nerds reading into it, that's fair, but it definitely has a lot, lot more to read into than, say, Gravity Falls or Legend of Korra do. A lot of smoke doesn't make for a fire, but it does make it a lot more likely there's a fire somewhere.
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Mar 18, 2015 19:42
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Rangpur posted:I think 'trapped in an MMO' would be an interesting setting, but only under the assumption that the characters are aware of it and want to escape. Otherwise it's just begging the question 'why not just play any other generic fantasy RPG?' What I saw of the Log Horizon anime kind of does that, but the RPG mechanics don't seem to support it all that well so far. In the show, revival at the nearest Cathedral actually does carry a cost--you slowly lose your memories of the real world. If you were to run with that, it gives you some wriggle room when it comes to accidentally wiping out the party while still maintaining a certain amount of tension. For example, lose all your memories of the real world and you effectively become an NPC. Yeah, I'd find a Matrix-style scenario where the players are more trying to out-Neo by hacking the existing simulation each other much more interesting. As well, basing a MMO more something off Second Life instead of a generic fantasy RPG would provide for a more diverse setting. You can even start where the players have forgotten that they're in a virtual world and start in a normal seaming city that exists as the initial chat room then go to the older parts of the simulation which have become corrupted, both digitally and morally. theironjef posted:Dude it does get points for that Mary Sue thing, that is true. We both laughed at that and glossed over it in the show for some reason, probably because we were both on a runaway train to break this game with Punch Witch (pictured below): I already came up with Punch (To The Throat) Witch already in this thread... 
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Mar 18, 2015 21:52
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I've been reading ahead for the inevitable review of Changing Breeds 2007, and it's honestly kind of amazing that they let Brucato bring in four untested writers to help him describe how awesome it is to be a furry, not to mention that they let him write the book at all. Like besides the fact that his name is attached to Freak Legions, he also single handedly penned the 1st edition Black Furies tribebook, wherein he states that the Judeo Christian god, and the god of Islam in particular, is actually a wyrm spirit named Patriarchy who's sole purpose in life is to make women feel shameful about their beautiful naked bodies and force them to cover up. I'm having to constantly remind myself that a man did, in fact, write this, and he wrote it in 1993, not 1973.
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Mar 18, 2015 22:09
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I've only read the one Phil Brucato book (Deliria) but that sounds 100% on-model to me. That book is 80% telling you how great fairies are, and 20% reminding you you can't play as the great fairies.
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Mar 18, 2015 22:14
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Kurieg posted:I've been reading ahead for the inevitable review of Changing Breeds 2007, and it's honestly kind of amazing that they let Brucato bring in four untested writers to help him describe how awesome it is to be a furry, not to mention that they let him write the book at all. I think/hope they were ordered by someone up the chain of command to make the book, so they farmed it out to Brucato and did their best not to look at it. It's the only printed core World of Darkness book I do not have, with good reason.
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Mar 18, 2015 22:23
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How was freak legion anyways? I've had friends pestering me to run a game in it but the werewolf parts of OWoD have always seemed boring to me.
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Mar 18, 2015 22:26
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Everything except for the first chapter ranges from meh to actually surprisingly insightful and well written. Which is to be expected because there's thirteen writers credited But chapter 1 is the character creation and powers section where a sidebar tells you how to construct a hooker with a fanged vagina that bites off your PC's penises and then cooks them with their inner volcano. And a piece of art has a woman with a face on her breast and another woman with a face on her rear end, and the auxiliary faces are making out. As long as you ignore the sexual creepy stuff they basically suggest running it like a game of Paranoia. You are going to die, the question is how and what you do before it happens. theironjef posted:I've only read the one Phil Brucato book (Deliria) but that sounds 100% on-model to me. That book is 80% telling you how great fairies are, and 20% reminding you you can't play as the great fairies. I actually sort of heard about the character creation for this.. Basically the idea is that you don't really get to do things as a PC, most of your stats are relegated to how well you can survive and put up with the poo poo that the fairies do. And you aren't precisely a hero. You're just some guy who's really good at surviving fairy poo poo. Kurieg fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 22:35
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PresidentBeard posted:How was freak legion anyways? I've had friends pestering me to run a game in it but the werewolf parts of OWoD have always seemed boring to me. "Possessed" is Freak Legion with all the dumb stuff taken out, plus rules to player the other types of possessed, plus a variety of weird modes of play. It's really great.
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Mar 18, 2015 22:46
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Freak Legion had a few unsettling splats of fomor, and more than one complete loss, like the fragmentary Banes bound into 'temporary' tattoos, that would form into a full-blown possession if you wore more, and the secret society of boy-scout fomori, versus... the stretchy ones that could make people stretchy and drag them down the toilet. And there was Putty-Buddy. Putty-Buddy was cool, because it was Silly Putty but better. You could use it to lift faces off of photographs and then put it on over your own face as a functional disguise, or string it out for use as a high-tensile rope. Putty-Buddy screams as it burns.
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Mar 18, 2015 22:59
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 Pre-post Edit: Any instances of Scenario or Session in this write-up or rules should be interchangeable as a given Scenario should be completed in one Session. I noticed this after writing the Session section and didn't feel like like doing a search and replace because  Character Rewards Edit: Another thing I forgot to mention in Character Advancement: No Multiclassing. Ever. Once you've picked a Class, you're stuck with it. It makes sense in order to preserve balance, otherwise, without some elaborate hoop to jump through, there'd be a bevy of cherrypicking Skills through classes and the whole system kinda falls apart. Log Tickets At the end of each session, the GM will hand out Log Tickets to each player.  Here's a sheet of them. Instead of Experience points or whatever sort of tracking currency, players recieve these that they can use on their Character. The rules make a note that Log Tickets are given to players and spent on characters and not to the characters themselves. This is due to situations where players rotate in and out or the person sitting in the GM's seat rotates amongst the group. There are four different types of Log Tickets: Character Rank Up, Fate Point Get, Treasure Get, and Other Get. The Character Rank Up ticket is used to increase the rank of a character. The Fate Point Get ticket is used during Pre-Play to increase a character's Fate Points by 1 for that session. Treasure Get is used to acquire either one normal item of their CR (character rank) or lower, two normal items with the [Consumable] tag of their CR or lower or a roll on the Treasure Table with a +10 to it and no other boosts from Skills or other items. Other Get, finally, is how one acquires new Connections, Unions (the organizational version of a Connection) and Sub-Classes. Note: There are no limits to how many Sub-Classes one can have, but only one may be active during a session at a given time and is chosen during Pre-Play At the end of each session, Log Tickets are awarded to each player and the GM is the GM changes. The suggested rewards are For Players: 1 Character Rank Up Ticket and 1 Ticket of any type per event. For GMs: 1 Character Rank Up Ticket, a number of Treasure Get Tickets equal to the number of players and 2 Tickets of any type per event. The reason for the double helping of Treasure Get Tickets is due to missing out on getting Prizes during the session. Nothing really indiciates what an event is or what differentiates it from a Scene or if they're the same thing and it's a translator fuckup. They also might be two different things and it's poorly explained. Treasure Whenever players are rewarded, they are to get Flow of Play Japanese Tabletop RPGs being what they are, they tend to have their own brand of ideas of how the flow of a session should work that's a bit more confined compared to the more lassiez faire notions of the West. To be fair, however, how it's described is a generally more codified version of how a session is to be run. Session Flow  Courtesy of the .txt file that has all of the information on the game (since apparently there isn't a fan who can turn it into a decent looking PDF). I tried putting it in as is, but it wont format here so enjoy the screen grabs The chart above is how the general flow of a session operates. Pre-Play This where all the stuff that's done before the session begins is supposed to occur like when the pizza for the game is ordered or when the GM scribbles down what's actually supposed to happen in the session since he or she hadn't done it beforehand. Also, Skills with the timing Pre-Play are used here. Main Play The actual session. This part is divided up into multiple phases, each with multiple Scenes. A Scene is essentially an encounter or sub-encounter where things actually are done. At the end of each Phase, all players recover a Fate Point Opening Phase This is when the problem of the week/session is introduced with usually only one Scene occurring (as per the .txt which is probably as per the book). Once players have bitten onto a plot hook and started on it, they can move onto the next phase. Middle Phase This phase composes the largest part of the session and involves the Players actually doing work to solve what ever issue was presneted to them like killing 20 Brown Warrior Beetles or delivering a parcel to the generic farmer in the next town over. "They should be presented with challenges, trials, and possibly enemies to defeat." Possibly enemies. Once players are at close to finishing their goal, they enter the next phase. Climax Phase This is where the Boss battle takes place or whatever final encounter is appropriate. Ending Phase This is where everything wraps up and the heros collect their sweet loot that they picked up while running off the rails or the fifth time in the session. There are generally no encounters in this phase unless everyone wants to fight for their share of the loot ala Red Dragon Inn. Other notes on Scenes At the end of each Scene, a few things happen.
As mentioned in previous posts, in the series Adventurers (people who were sucked into the game) can't really die. Upon death and subsequently popping into a pile of XP and loot, Adventurers revive at the nearest Cathedral or respawn point missing some stuff and some XP. This XP, however, is also their memories and once it's lost it can't be regained as it was. In this game, there's no mechanical way to simulate it and players that are revived either rejoin the party wherever they are at the next scene or wherever the GM thinks it makes sense. It's probably easier that way. After Play This is where general session housekeeping tasks are done like filling players back to full health and Fate Points, selling unwanted loot and treasure and spending their "Log Tickets." Round Progression This generally occurs during combat or any other time sensitive tasks like defusing a warhead or running through a series of traps. Have another flowchart.  Briefing Scene This is the part that happens just before a fight where the GM tells the players any observable information about the enemies they will encounter in the scene In the event of a surprise round (by either the players or the enemy), there is no Briefing Scene and anyone cause surprised are made [Dazed] and [Post-Action]. Side note: Scouting Certain skills are Scouting skills and have the [Scouting] tag. They allow players to get extra info on the enemies they might face (enemies include traps). These skills also have a special effect if the player Fumbles the roll which is that the enemy notices them. The mechanical result is up to the GM and can include calling for reinforcements, retreating to a better position, or anything that makes it worse for the players like giving them all +3 Hate at the start of the fight. Setup This is the beginning of the combat round, where all characters are set to [Pre-Action] status. This is also where Skills with the [Timing: Setup] can be used. Initiative This is when the person to go next is chosen and Skills with [Timing: Initiative] can be used. If there was another flowchart to determine who goes next in initiative, I'd have it here. Unfortunately, there isn't and I'm not making one. How it works: Highest initiative [Pre-Action] character not on Standby goes. If there are none, lowest initiative [Pre-Action] charcter on Standby goes. If there are ties, it defaults to the PCs. Between PCs, they decide or the GM does if they cannot. Between NPCs, GM decides. Standby Before entering the Main Process, a character can elect to go on Standby. It's akin to holding an action and must be done before performing an action in the Main Process. Also they cannot go into Standby twice in a round. Main Process ("Process" is such a strange word to use and I'm 90% certain it's the translator and not the source that has it as such. I could definitely be wrong given the Japanese handle on English.) The actual action part of a turn. Characters are allowed one each of a Major, Minor, Move and Instant Action (think Standard, Swift or Minor, Move and Free). They can be taken in any order and Instant Actions can be taken at any point during the Main Process. Once a character is done with the Actions, they are changed from [Pre-Action] to [Post-Action] and status effects like [Staggered] or [Dazed] are removed. Cleanup Process Effects like [Regen] or [Decay] take place during this part with healing going before damage. Any Skill with [Timing: Cleanup] is used here and any effects that last for one round end here. Combat And here it is, the section where a majority of actions and things a player can do take place. Squares and Movement Every measurement in this game is done via Squares. 1 Square is 5 square meters. (Assuming they mean an area of 5m^2, this approximates to Squares that are approximately 5ft. x 5ft. actually which screams D&D to me.) Unlike that game, however, you can fit any number of characters into a Square as the GM deems reasonable so there's nothing wrong with situations where the party Tank is literally on top of the Mage in order to protect them though it doesn't really stop targeting. Line of sight rules aren't really explained in much depth beyond Props that are [Impassible], like Walls, block it. There's no mention of Center-to-Center or Corner-to-Corner or Point-to-Point rules, so I'm assuming it's up to the GM's discretion as to if something is in Line of Sight. Distances and Movement are traced orthogonally. No diagonals. Three types of movement: [Normal Move], [Safe Move] and [Teleport]. [Normal Move] is affected by [Hinder], enemies and terrain. [Safe Move] is affected only by terrain. [Teleport] is affected by none and only requires landing in a valid square. There's also forced movement that characters can force on others. They follow the movement rules of the type of movement occurring such as [Safe Move (Forced)] being immune to [Hinder]. Instead of Attacks of Opportunity, there's [Hinder]. If a character in the same square as you would attempt a [Normal Move], you can declare a [Hinder] and their movement immediately end. No Tumble check, no nothing. Should've used a [Safe Move]. Attacking and Defending  Another flowchart for how Attacking works. There are three types of attacks: [Weapon Attacks], [Magic Attacks], and [Special Attacks]. [Weapon Attacks] are done via a weapon and are either a [Melee Attack] or a [Ranged Attack]. [Magic Attacks] are done via magic (obviously). [Special Attacks] are done via songs, mechanisms or other things. Once you have made an attack and After the attack roll is the Damage Roll. There's four types of damages: Physical, Magical, Penetrating and Direct. Physical damage is generally done via the environment or weapons and Magical damage is done by magic. Penetrating damage is special and ignores [Physical Defense] and [Magical Defense], however, it is still resisted by the [Cancel] effect. Direct damage is even better than Penetrating as it ignores [Cancel] as well and cannot be reacted to. The only thing that can mitigate it is [Barrier]. There's a chart provided in the .txt, but I'll spare you that. The flow chart summarizes damage application for the most part. Once damage is calculated, Physical Defense or Magical Defense reduce damage by their ratings and then other sources like [Cancel] and [Barrier] apply their effects. If any damage goes though, it's deducted from the defender's HP. After, other damage effects like [Hate], [Pursuit] or [Weakness] apply in any order. Once damage is done, any added status effects are applied if the attack does so. Any post-damage healing comes after and finally secondary attacks from the initial one occurs. Simple right? Skills Skills are the meat and potatoes of what combat actions a PC can take and generally provide the more unique advancements to a class. A more comprehensive listing will be done later since a significant number of skills (like the starting ones) don't make as much sense outside of the context of the flow of play and combat rules.  Extracted from supplementary material online, this is what a typical Skill box looks like. The fan translations have put them all into Excel spreadsheets since its easier to make the boxes in there. The skill boxes there more resemble this:  Skills actually come in three types: Basic (which everyone has), General and Combat. If it's in that space and isn't "Basic," "General," or "Combat," it's just another Tag. Max SR is the highest rank a Skill can go to. This ranges from 1 to 5. Timing is when a skill can be used. Most of the time it refers to the phase it's supposed to work in. It's pretty obvious. Check Type says whether its opposed, versus a difficulty, auto succeeds, has no check or is in the text. Target: Self is self-explanitory while Single/some value is as well. Area, Wide or Line are a bit more particular and all can have P or A after them with the latter two also having a value indicating range. Area (P) indicates that any number of valid targets in the targeted square are affected while Wide 2 (A) means that all valid targets 2 squares away are affected. Line indicates a straight line in any of the four directions. Range is also easy to figure. Close indicates the same square, Weapon is based on the Weapon. Otherwise it should explain. Cost is generally gaining Hate or spending Fate points. If (Party) is specified, then the user and their party members must pay the cost. If (Allies) is specified, then all allies of the user must pay, but the user doesn't have to. Activation is how often it can be used. Things that are n/Scenario can be thought of as Dailies while n/Scene can be thought of as Encounter powers. The description text is mostly straightforward and is fairly clear for a translation, so kudos to them. Other Things So this is a pile of stuff that does't really fit into the above and constitute the GMing and Reference sections Exhaustion Since HP is not at all a way to track party fatigue over a session, Log Horizon has One thing that the game's provided Scenario has is The Exhaustion Counter which is meant for things like dungeon crawls and the like. Every round that progresses, add +1 to the counter and whenever the party would roll, they would add that modifier onto the roll. Items and Equipment Equipment Each item has a rank and a number of tags on it. The rank determines what CR a character may use it at. Thus, a rank 3 item is unusable by a rank 1 character without a Skill that allows them otherwise. Tags indicate the item's type and/or where it equips to. Anything with the [One Handed] or [Two Handed] tags go to the hands while anything with the [Accessory] tag goes to the Accessory slot for example. Every player has a limited number of equipment slots for their character. They have two hand slots (for weapons or shields), an armor slot, a bag slot, three accessory slots for things like helmets or cloaks or extra bags and so forth, and two inventory slots to carry anything unequipped. Some equips have tags that allow them to be put in multiple spots. You can choose any slot it's legally able to be put into for use. Changing or trading equipment is a Skill (actually two skills, one for reequipping and the other for trading). Both are Minor Actions Notable Equipment tags Most tags are fairly obvious like [Helm] being helmets or [Blade] indicating swords. A few do need explanation though.
Arms and Armaments Weapons, armor and accessories all can modify your stats. Armors and shields increase your [Physical Defense] and [Magic Defense]. This does mean that having a [Sheild] in each hand can maximize your defenses. However, since they are not weapons, they don't add to your [Attack Rating] and as a result you're considered Unarmed. The [Attack Rating] and [Magic Rating] for being unarmed is equal to your STR and INT respectively. There are very few reasons to ever be willingly Unarmed. Most of those reasons are for Skills that require it. Weapons follow the same rules somewhat except that only one weapon's [Attack Rating] can be used at a time in an attack unless a Skill says otherwise. Magic Items If it isn't a mundane item, it's Magic. There are two basic types of Magic Items: Prefixed and Named. Prefixed items are the typical D&D weapons of Burning Keen Longsword of Death or what have you. Named items are "unique" items with a special name and are generally better than an equivalent Prefixed or Mundane counterpart. All Magic Items have a grade and are akin to their rarity/potency (the .txt lists item colors in an MMO as an equivalent). The grade ranges from [M1] to [M7]. Each Magic Item also has a recipie involved in making it. Named items have their recipie listed with their description including a specific [Core Material] which are only obtained through the Treasure tables or drops from certain enemies. This is in addition to other base items, money and [Magic Catalysts]. Prefixed items, on the other hand, need only a single base item, some [Magic Catalysts], and some money. Creating a Prefixed item is a bit more complex and I'll let the .txt do the talking here: quote:Step 1: Choose a Prefix. Prefixes can be found in the Item List. The items spreadsheet has a listing for all of the costs. Enemies and Props Props Everything that is not a character, an enemy, or an item is classified as a Prop. From the ceiling to the floor, if it's part of the terrain or not owned by anyone relevant, it's probably a Prop. This also includes certain traps or impediments to progression like locks or traps. Props can also have difficulties attached to them related to Analyze, Percption or Disable Enemies Enemies, like everything else in this game have Tags and their own stat block and Rank. When setting up monsters, a CR1 Enemy = a CR1 player and it goes up accordingly. The book doesn't list how many CR1 Enemies are equivalent for a CR 2 Player or something similar however. There are three relevant tags for enemies: [Mob], [Gimmick] and [Boss]. As explained before, [Mob] enemies are mooks and are weaker than PCs. Two [Mob] enemies are equivalent to an equally ranked player. [Gimmicks] have a similar power level, but more resemble traps or mechanical devices that just run on the Enemy rules. [Boss] enemies are the reverse and a single [Boss] is worth 3 or 4 PC of the same rank. Bosses also have Fate Points that can be spent to do special attacks or improve their rolls like PCs do. Final  After all of this, I'm not sure this is a good system to really run anything in. There are elements of a good system hiding inside it. I like the codifying of skills and tags to categorize everything. The classes are relatively well thought out and all do what they're meant to do. The rules are clear and clean and generally unambiguous, though that may be due to the translators, so kudos to them. Introducing the ability for there to be multiple occupants in a single space is quite revolutionary for a game like this and Hate is very interesting as a method to punish/reward GM attack focusing. For problems, I feel there are more of. The lack of concrete scaling is a bit of an annoyance. The amount of scaling via character rank is somewhat slow since it takes three levels for a given attribute to increase without getting equipment or a Skill to increase it. Beyond that, the numbers on skills don't every change except at prescribed increments (many of them at CR 11 or 21 if characters ever reach that far). Just as the Classes are focused in what they do, they don't leave a lot of room to do things outside of their proscribed roles. Guardians are only ever going to really play Tank while Enchanters are really only ever going to play support. Reading the rules doesn't imply much emphasis on things outside of Combat. Not necessarily dungeon crawling itself, but it runs into some of the problems that D&D has where the complexity of systems related to combat vastly eclipse those systems not related to combat. Things like Connections, Sub-Classes and Unions are generally fluff and can be completely ignored without anything in the system being lost. The highly ordered nature of how a session should progress is also irksome, and that's more a Japanese game thing than a problem specific to this game (it's what makes me somewhat averse to Double Cross even though the Powers and concepts are interesting). There's a chargen minigame since coming in with a concept is all well and good, but since there are so many options already available, it's a bit paralyzing when making a character unless there's a very firm idea of what they wish to do with that character. The system is probably more than inspired by 4th Edition D&D than any other edition and it's definitely a lot better than some other systems I've read up on. Unfortunately, the game isn't to my tastes. I get D&D flashbacks with this game. I haven't gotten into any real analysis over the game. This has more been a cursory inspection. I've looked over the body work, but I haven't actually taken it apart or turned it (  ) on so things like combat math may still be looked at. There's definitely the possibility of Rocket Tag shenanigans occurring since PC and enemy damage seems quite high while the difficult to hit each other is relatively low. However, this may or may not actually be the case.I hope this was an entertaining read for those who read my first attempt at an F&F. Writing it in Notepad makes these posts feel a lot bigger than they actually turn out which bugs me a little since it influences where I put line breaks. I'm actually kinda sick of looking at this system. Maybe it's because I've binged on every facet of this for the past few days writing up this F&F or maybe it's because I'm just bored of looking at Excel Spreadsheets and .txt files (including where I'm writing these before posting) as opposed to an actual PDF or physical book. There's some stuff I left out like the Monster Data or status effect explanations, but much of that is reference material. If people want to ask me questions about things in the system that is unclear or unexplained or just curious about, I'm welcome to field them to the best of my abilities. The last things I'm posting that I'm in the middle of preparing is the Character example. The other thing I'm willing to post is a lineup and review of the Skills, but only if people think it would be interesting to dump a list of about 500 skills (many of which are very similar due to how it's written so it's likely a lot less than that in actuality) and their descriptions or just do an overview/summary. Alternatively, someone else could take up the task or I could consult with them. I would like to (re)do Dungeons: the Dragoning one day since it never finished and there's a certain novelty to it that fascinates me. I also might like to give Pokemon Tabletop United a chance since the last time I saw it, it was still Pokemon Tabletop Adventures and a d20 system. In any case, that's the Log Horizon TRPG. The link to the largest repository of translated content for the RPG is here: http://lh.oksub.me/wiki/Log_Horizon_TRPG Xelkelvos fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Mar 19, 2015 |
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Mar 19, 2015 09:56
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Grnegsnspm posted:This makes me happy. You ended up statting her out almost exactly the way I did except I had taken Tough instead of Goody Goody since it gives a universal +1 to resist magic instead of just harmful spells. Also good to see you found the Sweet Tooth drawback is the most obviously able to be ignored. Didn't mention it in the podcast but it's the only one of the Negative Knacks that can be entirely obviated if you get one rank in summoning since that lets you summon candy. It's also fun to note that the sample combat takes place without the aid of magic. If we get rank 3 in Alteration, we can cast Grow on ourselves to get up to the d12+2 Body die type which is important since that is the break point where we gain yet another action. So if we Hulk out, we can get one more punch in for 60 total damage. It is worth noting that a Dragon, one of the big bads of the monster section, has 34 HP. I just liked the idea of her being heroic compared to the nastiness of most of the characters. Another must have for her, I think, would be a Winged Fairy Dress. It lets you fly, but also lets you voluntarily shrunk to 10 inches tall, with no mention of Body stat loss. Because the image of Lucinda being uppercutted into the stratosphere by Tinkerbell is just too hilarious. (Young Freud, I had your picture in mind at the time too...)
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Mar 19, 2015 16:54
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hyphz posted:I just liked the idea of her being heroic compared to the nastiness of most of the characters. This sent me into a laughing fit, well done.
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Mar 19, 2015 17:58
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