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Evil Mastermind posted:Which realm would y'all like to hear about next? Let's talk about one of the cosms not covered in the old F&F review - I'll vote Orrosh.
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Apr 7, 2015 03:53
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 Since the supplement's free and only 4 pages long, I decided to review this one as well. It's a rather bare-bones expansion, with 8 new Underling races (4 of which are Elemental types, 2 of which are Werewolves and Wererats, and 2 of which are Aasimars and Tieflings). The Elemental Underlings are pretty badass, with decent skill selection (Perception plus one or two movement-related ones), whereas the Planetouched and Lycanthropes are typical combatants with some special spell-like ability and some defensive features. The 2 new Underling Universal Rules included Improved AC and Improved HP, which treat the Underling as being 1 CR higher for the aforementioned values. But we have new feats and spells, yeah! quote:Minion Cleave Minion Cleave is a bad-rear end yet situational feat, and its usefulness is dependent on how much the GM loves to throw minions at the party. Unless the character's using a reach weapon or has Great Cleave, they probably won't drop many minions unless they're all clustered together. It's good in that the excess damage is carried over automatically without the need for re-rolls, unlike regular Cleave. Stand Aside...well, underlings don't hit very hard, and since they'll be dealing half damage with AoOs it's not really worth it in my view. Undead Lord is excellent, in part because of its potential action economy abuse. It is quite thematic, in that every necromancer villain worth their salt is commanding a horde of undead minions to defend their master. The nine new spells are Summon Underling I-VIII, with SU I a 2nd level Bard/Cleric/Sorcerer/Wizard spell, SU II 3rd level, and so on and so forth. Basically these spells function as Summon Monster, except that they summon 4 Underlings who must be outsiders selected from the following list: angel, archon, azata, demon, devil, or elemental (any). The Group CR of said Underlings is CR 1/2 for SU I, CR 1 for SU II, CR 2 for SU III, and 2 additional points for every spell increment level thereafter to a maximum of CR 12 at SU VIII. I feel that Summon Underling is a rather weak spell in comparison to Summon Monster counterparts, in part due to the lack of endurance and special abilities, but being able to summon 4 monsters at a time can be useful under the right circumstances. It did not specify whether or not monsters utilizing Underling Templates could be summoned or not. If your GM allows this, then the spell's versatility goes way up in no small part due to the Mage and Priest templates. And that's it for the Bonus package. I really like the touch of the Summoning spells, Elemental Underlings, and Undead Lord feat. The rest was alright, but at 4 pages for free I'm not complaining.
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Apr 7, 2015 04:11
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Genius Addendum I'll edit this into the intro post, but next in the pdf after the introduction is a glossary filled with terms that haven't been explained yet. I'll note the important ones here, but I'll explain the rest as I reach the appropriate sections. Axiom: Genuises do everything through constructs called wonders, and building wonders goes through a variety of disciplines called axioms. The axioms are Apokalypsi, Automata, Epikrato, Exelixi, Katastrophi, Metaptropi, Prostasia, and Skafoi. Wonders: The Catalyst: A race/subtype style division, all Geniuses belong to one of five Catalysts that has a substantial impact on their motivations and what kind of mad scientist they are: Grimm (rage), Hoffnung (hope), Klagen (sorrow), Neid (rejection), or Staunen (curiosity). From a fluff perspective, your Catalyst is the emotion driving your descent into madness. The Peerage: The good guy mad scientists, and the PCs are probably members. Divided into Foundations that grant benefits while focusing on a particular type of mad science. Each PC probably belongs to one. Lemuria: The evil mad scientists, basically the Illuminati. The Peerage know they're all insane. Lemurians think they're right. Divided into Baramins based on how they approach the world through the lens of their [mad] science. Inspiration: In crunch, it's the power stat. In fluff, it's the alien force of creativity that makes Geniuses what they are. Mania: The energy of Inspiration. It's your blood points, mana, what-have-you. Havoc: Yeah, it's Paradox. Backlash from mortals interacting with Genius stuff or Genius stuff going wrong. Obligation: Morality stat. Illuminated: What happens when Obligation reaches 0. Complete monsters and whatnot. Beholden: Ghouls, now in lab assistant flavor. Collaborative: Group of Geniuses that work together (the PCs are probably this). Bardos/Manes: Supernatural entities, basically, spawned from ideas that have been scientifically proven not to exist. You can play as one.
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Apr 7, 2015 04:12
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Dedman Walkin posted:Let's talk about one of the cosms not covered in the old F&F review - I'll vote Orrosh. I vote the same.
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Apr 7, 2015 04:36
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Between both attempts at Torg, I've actually only reviewed Nile Empire and the Cyberpapacy. On the plus side, those are also the only two two-book realms. Everything else is pretty much self-contained in one book so hopefully that'll reduce the slog-based burnout. It's also kind of depressing how much I've written about Torg and have only managed to cover the core and two of the realms.
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Apr 7, 2015 04:38
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Thanks for the review. Much like Death to Alignment and Nice Things for Fighters, I might never get to play 3.5/PF, but the ideas are very cool.
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Apr 7, 2015 06:06
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gradenko_2000 posted:Thanks for the review. Much like Death to Alignment and Nice Things for Fighters, I might never get to play 3.5/PF, but the ideas are very cool. You're welcome. I'm thinking of doing Path of Shadows next, a rather new product by Ascension Games. It's their first published work, but the production values are pretty high and the concept is very neat: a bunch of different kinds of shadow-themed magic and a new stealth-gish core class, the Nightblade.
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Apr 7, 2015 06:25
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 Chapter 2: Character Creation The character creation chapter opens up with all the basic nWoD stuff, right up until the "apply supernatural template" step. Ferals gain Shapeshifting, accelerated healing, Berserk and "The Fury", a weakness to silver, and the Delusion. They all have Nahuals and Accords, All of this is stuff we've gone over before. Then we get into the new stuff. Favors are just things that animals have. Extra limbs, being huge, the ability to fly. But the game then helpfully points out that "These favors aren't always balanced in game terms, no more than a mouse and lion are 'balanced' in real life. Even so, the human element provides a certain balance among beasts; a shapechanging hare, for example, is much more clever and magical than a normal bunny." So yes, there's the central conceit of the new world of darkness thrown right out the window. Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, etc are all sort of balanced, or at least meant to be. This, however, is a game with were-elephants with the mass of a large dump truck. Aspects are anything you get that isn't a part of your breed favors, anything that's distinctly supernatural. Some species get discounts on different aspects. The thing that makes this insane is that any Favors that are not a part of your breed count as Aspects. Yes this does mean that you can create an 8 armed were-bear with 13 legs and an elephants trunk if you have enough experience. Ferals also get Essence, because werewolves get Essence. There's basically no explanation beyond "It's a measure of spiritual power." Feral Heart is your power stat, and it's basically Primal Urge by a different name. Their Morality stat is Harmony, again, like werewolves. But because they wanted to be confusing, it's something incredibly different under the same name. They also saw fit to bring along one of my least favorite parts of Forsaken, Renown, in the term of Respect. They'll get into it later but trust me when I say it's very dumb. Finally we get into the actual descriptions of the different Accords. All of these pictures are full bleed artwork that goes under the text at points, so I'm going into my PDF copy directly and assembling the page images like a jigsaw puzzle. It's more effort than it really deserves but this art is terrible enough that you need to see it.   Den-Warder: "Place your feet carefully if you walk along the edge." The archetypical protector. "He's the bulwark against chaos, whose strength safeguards the weak. Both provider and protector, he feeds others with his labor and wards their future with his life. Honor is his birthright in both human and bestial forms. If a Warder offers you his word, he may die to keep that oath". of course this is immediately followed by "but they're human so they're fallible". All warders have made an "oath" to protect something, even if it's only to themselves. Be it their herd, or the kids in a neighborhood. Their human archetype is a Knight, they "Bear an Armored Burden" and said burden "Weighs heavy on their back" causing them to sometimes be snappish or tyrannical, "'Am I good enough?' is a constant question with such a person, and sometimes the answer sounds like 'No'." Their appearances tend towards "Conservatism" which apparently means that they always dress like Cowboys or blue collar workers, despite the fact that one of the sample careers is "Idealistic Lawyer". They're often bulky and strong and bigger than everyone else in their band. Their Musical Tone is "harmonious", their skill specialties are empathy medicine and survival, and they take a -1 dice penalty on degeneration rolls because they hold themselves to a higher standard. And of course, because this is a white wolf game, there are stereotypes of the other Accords. And of course, they're antagonistic, which seems doubly bizarre because your Accord seems like something you don't really have control over, seeing as how it's literally an agreement your souls are forced to make with each other. This is basically getting mad at someone for being good at math. quote:Heart-Rippers: Their bones are good for games of catch and not much else.   Heart Ripper: The Predator "Life's a thorn thicket. You move, you bleed. The ultimate predator, "The Ripper is Cruel, but not always Evil." The ripper is also, uhh.. quote:Despite her bloody reputation, the Ripper doesn't always kill literally. She couldn't survive long in man's world if she did. Her specialties are fear, pain, and challenge, and her hunting grounds are everywhere. From boardrooms to bedrooms to distant jungles and island depths, her shadow falls on the beak. She mocks, blocks, frustrates and enslaves - and often makes folks love her for it. The beast dares people alike to be strong or be prey. If they can't stand up to her, they're not worth her respect. quote:Given trust, this Ripper betrays it; given love, she exploits it and then demands more. She's a sweet killer, the walking heartbreak whose scars burn on the inside but leave the outside clean. There are many ways to rip one's heart and this beast knows them all. Since they are "imposing monsters" they dress to make a statement, biker leathers, fetish gear, rock star flash with a mohawk, etc. Others prefer a subtle buttoned-down look because you'd never expect it. Their musical tone is "Sharp or Ominous" and their specialties are brawl intimidation and subterfuge. They also get an additional die on degeneration checks so they're better able to rationalize their behavior. quote:Den-Warders: Oaks crack loudest when the storm blows in.   Root-Weaver: The Builder "The Artistry of Nature is the purest proof of god." That quote seems odd considering that people beleiving in god is what pissed off Nature enough to make murderbeasts. Their description is also hilariously weak. It's basically "BEES! SPIDERS! BEAVERS! BIRDS! ANIMALS BUILD! BUILDING GOOD! WHOOPS I ACCIDENTALLY MADE A BOMB!" Their musical tone is "Fugues and complex harmonic patterns", their skill specialties are Academics Crafts and science. They don't have any special degeneratoin thing. quote:Den-Warders: The foundation of any tribe lies in the strength of parents and protectors.   Sun-Chaser: The Rebel "Nature did not birth us to weep." quote:There's a feather on your bed in the morning. Your best jewelry's gone, along with the stranger who charmed his way home last night. On the bathroom mirror is one word, written in toothpaste: Sorry. He's off the(sic) chase the sun again. That's his way - and your regret Their musical tone is "Light and airy, or low and seductive"(????????) and their skill specialties are Athletics Expression and Socialize. They get One more dice for degeneration rolls because they're assholes. quote:Den-Warders: Loosen up before your bones crack, dude!   Wind-Dancer: The Seer "To know man's future, ask a beast. The wind dancers are the eternal wanderers and seers. Which means they're like The Sun-Chasers except they're seers this time. They are beset by otherworldly visions and insights that they do not want. The slight problem with all of that is there is no mechanical benefit of wind-dancer that makes you any better at those things than a member of any other accord. Since the powers you get discounts on are determined by your breed, not your accord. The favored skills are Investigation, Occult, and Stealth so they get a higher investigation for cheaper, but that's it. Their musical tone is "Low and Lonesome" and they have the same chance at degeneration as anyone else quote:Den-Warders: Fine walls, fine doors, but still a trap when life is burning. Advantages AKA: the rules stuff that isn't covered in the WoD core book. Feral Heart Feral Heart is your 'power stat', the higher this is, the more powerful a Feral you are. it is the "Cry of Nature in a character's soul". Everyone starts at 1, but can buy more with your starting bonus dots. Feral heart determines how long you can stay in your war form. which is Human Stamina+Feral Heart rounds. You can also focus to add your feral heart rating to any wits+composure rolls to perceive something, which 'brings out the beast' for [Feral Heart] minutes. Meaning you start acting a bit more like an animal. Higher ratings of Feral Heart also allow you to exceed the human maximums in attributes and skills, and store more essence/spend more essence in a turn. Animals also excel at manipulating people, by focusing you can add your rating in feral heart to any social dice pool to represent your "Animal Magnetism". This lasts for [Feral Heart] Turns. There are some downsides, because it's a World of Darkness game. Mainly that the higher your feral heart is, you start taking penalties acting with normal humans in social situations because you're acting like a beast, or you smell like a beast. The thing is, this penalty is always lower than your "animal magnetism" bonus, so it might as well not exist. And depending on how you read the rules, using "animal magnetism" makes it so the penalty doesn't apply anyway so you just use the full bonus. Essence "Nature's power surges through her werebeasts. Called Essence, this power helps them bend those polite suggestions that Man calls 'Physics'." Shut up phil. You can spend a point of essence to change form automatically as a reflexive action, you can spend a point of essence to regenerate a lethal wound as a reflexive action, you can spend a point of essence to activate your respect(which is explained later) and you can use essence to enter the spirit world or activate gifts if you've somehow bludgeoned your Storyteller with enough blunt objects to make him think that crossing over with werewolf is a good idea. Essence is recovered in a couple of different ways. Meditating in a natural area lets you roll your harmony dots and regain the successes as essence, which takes 1 minute per point. There's no limit on the number of times you can do this so you could theoretically just sit there and regen to your hearts content. "Going wild" can also regenerate essence, which means resting and running in your breeds preferred wilderness. Two days gains you one essence, five days restores three, and a month gives you back all of your essence. Saving nature from man or man from nature restores some essence as you "Rebalance your animal and human souls". Buuut so does turning cannibal and eating a human or your beast blooded animal. Whoops. Harmony And here is our morality stat, ostensibly it's meant to represent the degree to which your human and animal halves are in balance. In practice, not so much. Whenever you commit a harmony sin, you roll a certain number of dice based on that sin's level, success means you just feel bad but haven't slipped down the scale, failure means you lose a point of Harmony. Lower levels of harmony make it easier to sin, but harder to resist sliding down for doing the truly monstrous poo poo you do. It also makes it easier to go berserk or fall to The Fury. Also falling down the Harmony scale makes your Aiaetha visible to others for some reason. THE SINS! 10 Accidental disregard for property or wilderness Yes, this is the "You broke a vase" level of petty morality 9 Not Shapeshifting for more than a week; disrespect towards people You didn't hold a door open for john, roll 5 dice for your sins. 8 Gross misbehavior; carelessness resulting in harm to man, beast, or nature And here's where things start to get hilariously bad quote:The feral who shits in a corner, accidentally breaks a person's arm or runs over a raccoon feels genuine regret. If that harm is serious (major injury, dead raccoon babies, brush fire started by a cigarette) that guilt may feel more like killing(Sin level 5 or 6) 7 Intentional theft or injury; disrespect towards Nature; eating your own animal species this is the 'makes normal people feel bad' level of sin. and 'disrespect towards nature' is here because 'that makes you as bad as a human' uuggghh 6 Killing "important" living things if you're a hunter This basically means that eventually a heart ripper is going to slide down to morality 5 no matter what they do. This is stupid. "important" is defined as "a mammal if you're not a reptile or insectoid breed, if you are then those things and also mammals" 5 Killing "important" living things if you're *not* a hunter Except for everyone else, you are a giant gently caress-off murderbeast, killing things is ostensibly what you are meant to do. the text for this is just "THIS FEELS BAD" 4 Killing your own kind; using silver against other shapechangers so yeah you can eat your breed species all day long at morality 6 as long as you weren't the one who killed it. Sure. 3 Torture; intentionally killing your own kind Oh and it had to be an accident. 2 Betraying man to beast or beast to man "Selling out your own kind to hunters of another species feels treacherous... and it is." How the gently caress do you betray man to beast? Leading some rube into the wilderness and leaving them there? 1 Sadistic murder; cannibalism of your own kind But.. eating them is a level 7 sin? is this "eating them while they're alive"? sure, whatever  I don't know what the gently caress species those are meant to be, they look like baboon/dog/lions They then go on to describe how a feral might act at the various levels of harmony, which is more or less what you'd expect. Harmony 10 is better than jesus. Harmony 3 doesn't care about a little blood on the ground when nature is on the line. Two and One are where they decide to introduce new poo poo randomly in the text that you probably decided to skip over after Morality 6 preached at you for making omelets because that meant you were torturing chickens. At harmony two your beast and man halves start to grow apart, and you drift further towards one or the other. You're either proudly human or a ravening beast, and shifting between forms at all costs one essence. At harmony one you're brutish and sadistic regardless of which side you have chosen, and it costs one willpower to shift forms at all. At harmony zero you are either locked in human or beast form, you lose the changing gift entirely and pass into the storyteller's control because you are now a monster. And this is where things go from "Huh maybe I should think about the choices that I've made" to "Wait, Brucato, what?" Because each time you downslide, you roll your new morality stat as a dice pool. If you succeed, you never have to roll at that level again, if you fail, any time you are at that level of morality or lower you have a derangement. And Brucato's derangements are loving ridiculous. First the "too much beast" ones. quote:Cage Shock (mild): Similar to a caged beast, your feral grows distressed. Pacing back and forth, he whines or snarls. Enclosed spaces feel constricting; clothes feel too tight. Anything less than open sky seems like a cage, and if forced to remain indoors, clothed, or otherwise confined, First of all, these are really bad derangements. They don't have anything that would trigger the roll, and the failure on the roll basically means that you can no longer contribute to the game until you stop. Also if you fail on the severe derangement you poo poo yourself. quote:Neoprimitivism (mild): The modern age is bullshit to your character. She affects tribal fashions, sports tattoos, goes barefoot everywhere and yammers about “the Pure Ones” — ancient people who supposedly lived in perfect harmony with Nature. Yes that is apparently the more 'severe' version of the same derangement. You go from an annoying hippie to making GBS threads on peoples rugs while maintaining eye contact to establish dominance. quote:One with the Bears (mild): He’s not half-animal — he’s all animal. Trouble is, this feral’s view of animals is extremely idealistic. He talks with them as if they’re fellow humans, yet holds real humans in contempt. He might be a furry or therian with elaborate garb and mythic history; or he’s renounced the human world and lives sort of a New Age dream in the deep wilderness. Either way, he’s disconnected from the truth of his situation. Who thought these were worthwhile in a group game? "Welp, talk to you later guys, I'm off to go live in the forest. I might be back later once I've somehow become a more moral person by making GBS threads everywhere and not wearing pants. Anyways now we're into the "Too much human" side of things. quote:Beast Fears (mild): This person’s afraid of animals, including the one in the mirror. Around beasts or fellow shapechangers, he seems agitated; if one confronts him, he may panic. This derangement is common among “little animal” ferals such as foxes or hares. It’s workable, but highly inconvenient. quote:Filthy Brutes! (mild): Your character doesn’t fear animals — she hates ’em. Lashing out subconsciously at the beast within herself, she teases and torments animals whenever possible. Flicking cigarettes at zoo beasts, kicking dogs and throwing water at kitties is normal fun for her. Naturally, this slides her further down the scale of sins. quote:I’m No Animal (mild): In a constant state of denial, this shapechanger refuses to . . . well, change shape. Unless extremely stressed, he won’t assume an animal form — and if he does, he immediately regrets it. In human form, he does everything he can to distance himself from his true nature. All traces of his double life are hidden with obsessive zeal. If you get either of these derangements then why the gently caress are you playing a changing breeds game. Congratulations, you can no longer shapeshift, ever. please hand in your tail and ears at the door. Respect Respect is... it's a thing. quote:The Respect Advantage isn’t a measure of fame, although fame can figure into it. Rather, Respect is a combination It's also almost completely pointless. In certain circumstances, your Highest respect will either add or subtract to various dice pools. You can try to play up a different respect than your highest one but your roleplaying is supposed to support it. Or, you could spend time focusing yourself and just apply your Feral Heart instead, because the rules for feral heart say they supersede the rules for Respect if they're higher. It also helps when dealing with werewolves or spirits since Respect is sort of like renown except not. Respect is also sort of determined by your Accord, you get a free dot in whichever respect your Accord has and two dots that float until you make an impression that would give you a place to put them. "For the storyteller, Respect reflect the things other charcters believe about the beast. Whether or not they are true doesn't matter - people will trust those impressions unless they're given a good reason not to. Respect also provides a social meter for the feral's accomplishments. That meter might not be accurate but it offers clues about their personality and experience." Read: gently caress we have no way of actually enforcing social pecking order and we've got two weeks till we're supposed to ship. Buying up your Respect actively harms you, I cannot think of a situation where you would want to buy it up unless you're dealing with werewolves and spirits a lot. Just use your Feral Heart instead, it has almost no downside. Cleverness is associated with root-weavers, it gives a bonus when you're trying to impress others with your intellect or awareness and a penalty when you're trying to gain their trust. Ferocity is associated with Heart-Rippers, It gives a bonus to indimidation rolls and subtracts from any attempt to make someone feel likeable or safe. It can also give a bonus or penalty to seduction rolls because gently caress you Brucato. Insight is associated with Wind-Dancers, and gives you a bonus when you offer advice, wisdom, or just "cut through the crap" and becomes a penalty when people nearby "do not want to hear the truth". I know Bruc wants these guys to seem like wizened seers but he has to actually give them the tools to do that, not just a "you seem like a wizened seer" stat. Loyalty is associated with Den-Warders. It is a bonus when you're trying to get folks to trust you or playing on your loyalty to convince someone of something, and a penalty if you're trying to seem streetwise or cool because you just aren't with it man. Passion: is associated with the sun-chasers. and gives you a bonus to attempts to seduce, entice, or inspire people. But a penalty to seem sober, level headed, or wise. Because how can such a volatile creature be taken seriously? Right? Shapeshifting This uses the werewolf system word for word except substituting "Feral Heart" for "Primal Urge" you roll human stamina+Survival+Feral Heart, success means you shapeshift as an instant action, exceptional success makes it reflexive, failure imposes a -1 cumulative penalty on future attempts until you succeed, dramatic failure deals you 3 bashing damage as you shapeshift into a pile of limbs and flesh and remain so until you succeed at a shapeshifting check. Fantastic. The Man Guise You look like a human, you can walk, talk, and have hands, next. The War Beast  The form for killing poo poo. The game tries to imply that the Changing breed's war-beast form is "A promise of holy terror walking" where as the Uratha Gauru form is "One long scream for blood", the issue is that the rules don't really support this distinction, or any distinction. Herbivorous ferals apparently tend towards rampages of raw distruction, whereas more timid creatures "Invert their usual natures to become trap-and-torture killers". Scavengers "Play mind-games, taunting prey fromt he shadows, herding them into traps and striking from ambushes tot ear their prey apart." Except this is literally impossible. While they are in their war form they must spend their turn attacking something be it the environment, or a person, unless they succeed on a Resolve+Composure roll. So you can hide, I guess, but if you fail your roll you've just punched a hole in the tree you were hiding behind as a 9 foot tall rabbit man. Also, whenever you assume the war-beast form for any reason you must roll to see if you enter a Tiger-Storm Berserk frenzy. So yes, using the war beast for any reason risks going going into a killing frenzy. Also, you can only remain in your War-Beast form for a number of turns equal to your human stamina + Feral Heart. Why would you waste precious turns hiding when you are in a "Kill everything that isn't you" form. Once your turns run out you cannot shapeshift back for the rest of the scene unless something else prompts you to go into a berserk frenzy. Regardless as long as you're in War-Form you ignore all wound penalties until you reach your last two boxes of health. Primal Beast You're an animal. Congratulations. Hybrid Forms There's an aspect you can buy that allows you to assume the Hybrid Forms, not everyone gets it, but it's available to everyone.  The Throwback The throwback is a slightly less effective war beast. You're only supposed to look sorta-animal-ish, but you invoke the delusion on people. Small breed creatures get +1 strength and stamina, -2 manipulation, +1 health, +2 speed, +2 to perception rolls, and can deal lethal damage. Large-breed creatures get +2 strength, +2 stamina, -3 manipulation, +1 size, +3 health, +3 speed, +1 to perception rolls, and access to their fang and claw favors. The Dire Beast The dire beast is your animal form just with a little more umph, adding +1 strength, +1 stamina, +1 size, +2 health, and +2 speed to your base animal form. it doesn't involve the delusion as hard as the other two forms, giving the viewer a +2 bonus to their dice pool.. Unless you're a rat, bug, or "Creepy" animal, in which case they take a -2 penalty. Meaning your "Slightly larger than average bat" is just as horrifying as your human-bat hybrid form. The Delusion When seeing a werebeast shift a witness must roll resolve+composure - your feral heart score. If they witness your War-Beast form, they subtract an additional 2. Dramatic failure reduces them to a catatonic mess that takes a -5 penalty to all actions and will do their best to mentally resolve the issue. Failure means they take a -3 penalty to actions and will do their best to get the gently caress away. Success means they can act normally with a -2 penalty but will still rationalize it away. An exceptional success means they can act without penalty and remember with perfect clarity. The Throwback form gives them their entire resolve+composure pool, not accounting for your feral heart dots. If their worldview allows for the existence of werebeasts, then they get an extra dice, if they're literally scully from the X-Files they lose one more dice.  Regeneration Ferals regenerate one point of bashing every other turn unless they have a merit that lets them go every turn. They regenerate one point of lethal every 15 minutes, and they can spend a point of essence to heal lethal immediately. They heal Aggravated damage normally. A feral who is knocked unconscious or killed reverts to human form immediately, a severed limb reverts to human as per usual. You are also immune to all conventional diseases and parasites. The Berserk Finally we get the rules for this. When faced with a threat you cannot pacify you are force to either flee or run. The Rabbit Run The "Get the gently caress out of here" berserk, and more often than not the default one. When confronted with a serious threat most ferals would rather run than fight, they revert to their primal beast form and gtfo. If something prevents them from fleeing however The Tiger Storm It's Murdering Time. Everything is a valid target, friend, foe, innocent, anything that gets in their way will be destroyed. If things get really bad the Feral will shift to the War-Beast form. In Tiger Storm a feral is immune to all wound penalties. Until they take a point of health damage in their last three health boxes then they will shift back to their fastest form and try to run away. The game is also quick to point out that this fear is not rational, if their fastest form is their man-guise they will shift into that and probably die from all the bashing damage upgrading to lethal or aggravated. If they do choose to assume the War-beast form, it will last for twice as long as normal, but if the War-Beast turns run out they will fall unconscious, which means human form, which means you're probably dead. Resisting the Urge When confronted by a trigger according to your Harmony, you need to roll Resolve+Composure, Failure means you either need to spend a willpower point or begin raging. At Harmony 10 it's things like "Love one slain, tortured, or betrayed; betrayed by a loved one" but at harmony 1 its "Taunts or insults; perceived disrespect; startling movement, loud sounds, or bright lights" The Rage lasts until the beast escapes, all your threats are dead or gone, someone else uses calming magic on you, you run out of energy and fall unconscious, or you die. The Fury And we finally get to The Fury, AKA the only thing about the game that actually imposes any sort of meaningful conflict between nature and man. Mainly, if you ever witness a human doing something mean to nature, you are filled with an unshakable compulsion to do something. Roll your Resolve+Composure and subtract your Feral Heart dots. Yes, the more powerful you get the more likely you are to unleash THE FURY. quote:Animals aren't shy. When they send a message, they use direct methods: biting, scratching, spraying musk or defecating where someone will see it Humans find such behavior revolting. Beast-folk understand both sides. When annoyed, they use an animal's instinctive behavior to offend human sensibilities in return. quote:Minor Offenses: Arrogant or careless behavior; tossing cigarette; reckless driving; dumping trash in wilderness; teasing helpless animal This creates a situation where you can save someone from a raging lion because you're a harmony 10 saint, then immediately poo poo on their shoes because they lit up a cigarette in celebration of their not-dying-at-the-hands-of-a-lion and degenerate down to harmony 9. The storyteller can just kind of go "oh and you saw a car accident earlier, so what kind of premeditated murder are you going to be enacting and when do you want to make the degeneration roll?" This is not fun or interactive, this is the storyteller going "You are going to do this now, because nature demands it". Given that just being around humanity fills you with an overwhelming need to literally poo poo on them, I can see why most ferals would flee to the woodlands. And you know what? There is absolutely nothing in the harmony hierarchy that compels you to interact with humans. It just dictates how you should act if you decide to do so. The game as printed actively wants you not to interact with it in any meaningful way.  Let's start on actual mechanical stuff now. Favors Favors are the stuff you're born with... unless you buy them with experience points later. Buying a new favor that's in your breed costs "New Dots X 5", buying one that's not in your breed costs "New Dots X 7". Since there are a ton of favors that are just "at" a certain number of dots, this means that you'd need to pay 7+14+21+28+35 XP for a new 5 dot favor that's out of breed. Aquatic: ** to *** Your character is naturally aquatic in beast form for the 2 dot favor, you're aquatic in human form as well for the 3 dot favor. Though if your Nahual is naturally aquatic you can dive deeper than animals who aren't who buy this favor. Bioluminescence * Uhm... sure? It lets you see in darkness for a scene, but then you have to 'recharge' for 10 minutes. "It makes an excelent prank for trickster ferals to employ" somehow. and I can't really think of a way that isn't completely ludicrous or kinky. Darksight * I'm not sure if he actually understands how animals that can see in the dark see. Because you take no penalties for operating in darkness, or "in visually-adverse conditions, such as dense fog, smoke, or a heavy downpour." You also gain a +2 bonus to stealth rolls in these conditions because????? Echolocation * or *** This functions more or less how you expect for the one dot version... The three dot version somehow means that you can no longer be surprised while asleep and you gain a permanent +1 bonus to your defense because you can hear attacks coming. Extra Limbs * for the first limb, * per set of two afterwards No you don't always get an odd set of limbs, it's just that your 'first' extra limb only works like an extra hand and you can't really attack with it or do fine manipulation. However for each pair after that you gain one extra action a turn that can only use that set of limbs. But, still, you are getting extra actions *FOR FREE*. The only thing that is stopping you from turning into a hecatonchier is your storyteller, and gently caress the guy who actually decided to try running this game. Fang and Claw * to ***** This is the "Deal lethal damage" favor. if your breed gets it for free it gives you +1 dice for claws and teeth +2 dice for horns and antlers. One dot will give you an extra dice on all your attacks if you already get it, or give you damage at all for those who don't get it for free OR allow you to use your claws in man guise. Those who don't get it for free can buy it again to get the extra damage dice. for two dots you can sheathe your claws even if your animal species can't normally do so... which ..okay? and three dots lets you sheathe your claws in human form and gives you an additional +1 damage die. Which makes little sense. If you buy the 1 dot favor does that mean your claws are *always* out in human form unless you then go on to buy the three dot version? Limbless -* You're a snake, fish, or some other limbless creature, sucks to be you! Many Legged **** Extra limbs, except only for walking. You increase your speed by 4 on top of your normal speed increase. You can also walk on water(???) Also your hybrid form subtracts two dice from someones pool when resisting the delirium. Musk *** This is skunk-stink. Anyone within 300 feet of you when you use this must roll composure or suffer from dizziness and nausea immediately. You can choose to hose people down with it by rolling Dex+Feral Heart, each success allows you to hit a character inside of a 15X15 foot square, anyone hit takes a -3 penalty to the composure roll. Anyone who fails their roll takes a -3 penalty to their dice pools(!), and take a -1 penalty to defense, speed, and initiative. Using this ability costs one essence. The serious effects last one scene but the stench lasts for days. Natural Armor * to ***** Everyone gets a non-rated 1/1 non-bulletproof armor for free. * is bulletproof. *** is 2/1 bulletproof, **** is 3/2 bulletproof, and ***** is 4/3 bulletproof. Yes, that is absolutely loving ludicrous. Even more insane is that you can choose to have this apply to your human form as well, but it looks like you've got very rough skin. Giving you a -2 penalty on any social roll where having a pleasant appearance might help. Needleteeth *** You have strong sharp teeth that can ignore 2 points of durability when you're biting through objects, though this doesn't deal any extra damage to living creatures. Because sure. Quills ** to ***** The free version (E.G. you are a porcupine, hedgehog, or whatever else) means that anyone who hits you with a hand to hand attack(or gets hit by a hand to hand attack) needs to roll stamina against the ferals Dex+Feral Heart with any extra successes being reduced by the attackers armor. If the feral wins the extra successes are dealt as bonus bashing damage that can't heal until the quills are removed. Removing quills takes a minute per quill and deals an extra point of lethal on top of the bashing. So basically this is the "gently caress you any other creature with regeneratoin" favor. The Two dot version gives you the free version and also lets you fire quills up to 15 feet with a Dex+Feral Heart roll. each additional dot gives you an additional dice to this pool. And if you have the "Venomous Favor" aspect then these quills are now poisonous. And then at the end they state that "As a weapon these spines have no effect whatsoever on opponents who feel no pain, wear thick or solid armor or have skin that cannot be pierced by thin sharp objects". Which is ludicrously open ended, and also means that a werewolf can heal this damage until they shift out of Gauru form in which case he takes the damage but doesn't and the system implodes. Razorskin *** or **** The "I'm a shark" favor. Anyone who attacks you with brawl, or is grabbed and pressed against your skin, automatically takes 1 point of lethal. Any weapon that is used to attack you takes 2 points of damage to it's structure. The three dot favor costs a point of essence to turn on for a scene, the four dot favor is always on. This gift works in all forms except the man guise.  Pictured: the gift working in the man guise. Size **** This is 'always' free. Meaning that you always get your beasts base size, you can pay four dots to increase your beast forms base size by one. It then includes a size chart which tops out at "African Elephant/Orca" at 15 size. The favor only increases the size of your war-beast and primal forms, to increase your human form you need a completely different favor from the core WOD book which just seems like nitpicking. Speed Isn't a favor that you can buy! I don't know why it's here other than to make the fairly obvious claim of "your animal speed differs from your human speed" Water Breath * "The character can hold her breath or breathe underwater for as many hours as she has feral heart dots. This power costs one point of willpower to use." That's not how anything works. Either you can breathe underwater or you can't. You can't will yourself to breathe underwater. Webbing **** You basically need to be a spider to have this. It doesn't even talk about any other species that could concievably have this. And since it's essentially "Grapling rules in a roleplaying game" the rules for how it works are complex. A web has durability 3, no matter what. You roll Dex+Crafts+Feral Heart to determine how much structure the web has. Anyone wrapped in your webs gets two chances to escape with strength/dex+athletics, if they fail then they're trapped. Anyone who's trapped needs to deal double the structure of the web in damage to escape. Anyone who's not trapped only needs to deal structure rating in damage. Bizarrely, blunt weapons seem to work if you're trapped but not if you aren't. sure. Wings **** It's loving wings, what did you expect? If you're in your primal beast form you always succeed at flying. War beast form must succeed on a Dex+athletics check every turn. Human form can't fly at all but has "hollow bones" which let you jump twice as far as a normal person. Sure. Now let's move onto Aspects   I mean. Next Time: Holy poo poo there are a lot of Aspects
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Apr 7, 2015 07:06
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I feel so sorry for the artists who were commissioned to do stuff for this dreck. Not the ones who drew furry dicks, though. Like Brian LeBlanc, who drew the literal moose knuckle? Don't Google him at work. Kurieg, do Bird Tits and Smudged Not-Werewolf Dick have signatures? I feel like hurting myself.
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Apr 7, 2015 08:47
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Goddammit Brucatto. What's the longest page gap between references to making GBS threads/pissing/spraying musk on something? I get the feeling it's like half a page, tops.
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Apr 7, 2015 12:39
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Evil Mastermind posted:And yes, there are Torg-ian rules for martial arts styles. Drakyn posted:Living Land because dinosaurs and also mocking the bizarre inability of people to produce anything interesting with dinosaurs.
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Apr 7, 2015 14:37
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I'm actually kind of surprised that Nippon Tech is taking the lead here. Nippon Tech: **** Nile Empire: * Living Land: ** Orrorsh: ** e: Not to sway people's votes, but NT not only has Torg martial arts, but also has some pretty hilarious predictive 90's slightly-higher-tech.
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Apr 7, 2015 14:54
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I remember when Genius was at or near its genesis. I thought it was probably some dumb bullshit, but I peeked into the thread on RPGnet and there were some cool ideas being tossed around. It's too bad they went completely hog-wild and outdid the cruft of normal WoD books, which are already overstuffed with long-winded, irrelevant setting wank.Kurieg posted:Sun-Chasers: Bullshit served on a gold tray doesn't become caviar. Literally rolled my eyes and muttered "Jesus Christ" at this. quote:Wind-Dancers: Fine - you read the stars and I'll watch the shadows. Guess which one of us sees something first? Jesus Christ.
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Apr 7, 2015 15:00
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The obviously made-up "typical quotes" that are nothing even remotely like a thing anyone would ever say ever are some of my favorite parts of WoD games.
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Apr 7, 2015 15:04
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Evil Mastermind posted:The obviously made-up "typical quotes" that are nothing even remotely like a thing anyone would ever say ever are some of my favorite parts of WoD games. Most of them are boring-dumb, but there're enough of them that there are quite a few, uh, "gems" in nearly every book with splats.
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Apr 7, 2015 15:13
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Evil Mastermind posted:The obviously made-up "typical quotes" that are nothing even remotely like a thing anyone would ever say ever are some of my favorite parts of WoD games. Bang bang bang! Freeze police!
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Apr 7, 2015 15:19
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theironjef posted:Bang bang bang! Freeze police! We don't go to
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Apr 7, 2015 15:20
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Zereth posted:No no we should save the worst for last. That's why there's no votes for Aysle. If we don't cap off with Evil Mastermind trying to make a spell we're just robbing the climax. Nippontech because I'm in a particularly vicious mood about stupid poo poo involving Japan from the late 80s and 90s.
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Apr 7, 2015 15:20
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Mr. Maltose posted:That's why there's no votes for Aysle. If we don't cap off with Evil Mastermind trying to make a spell we're just robbing the climax. Nippontech because I'm in a particularly vicious mood about stupid poo poo involving Japan from the late 80s and 90s. 
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Apr 7, 2015 15:26
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I'm actually getting very interested to see how people will react to the actual book given what everyone seems to be building it up to be.
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Apr 7, 2015 15:37
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Mr. Maltose posted:Nippontech because I'm in a particularly vicious mood about stupid poo poo involving Japan from the late 80s and 90s. 
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Apr 7, 2015 15:38
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Well, given that Nippon Tech is now ahead by five votes and I'm still waiting on a deployment that should have happened on Friday, safe to say it looks like we're heading to Japan!
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Apr 7, 2015 15:40
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Everything I know about 80s Japan I learned from RoboCop 3 Another vote for Nippon Tech.
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Apr 7, 2015 15:50
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I grew up with "Japan will BUY US ALL", so yes, NipponTech.
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Apr 7, 2015 15:58
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Evil Mastermind posted:I'm actually kind of surprised that Nippon Tech is taking the lead here. Is it this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXGsvlnn1Cs
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Apr 7, 2015 16:02
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Kavak posted:I feel so sorry for the artists who were commissioned to do stuff for this dreck. Not the ones who drew furry dicks, though. It also probably hurts that changing breeds specifically lack a "Rite of Pants" meaning that they always have to be naked. Precluding fantastic artwork like this  Monte Cook's world of darkness may have had some very bad parts, but it's art direction had some gems PurpleXVI posted:Goddammit Brucatto. It's actually a very wide margin, the entirety of the Features, Aspects, and Merits are between character creation and the explanation of derangements and the fury. I just moved them up earlier in the chapter because that makes more sense in layout. The issue is that when the making GBS threads/pissing actually comes up, it's a compulsory action completely outside of the players control. The game is saying "No, you are going to poo poo on his lawn because he angered nature", which is completely ridiculous. The game is also at odds with itself in so many ways, not only does it contradict itself from one page to the next, the 'too much man' derangements don't actually excuse you from the fury. So you've got this man in a 3 piece business suit with perfectly groomed hair that is compelled to piss on someone's leg while screaming "I AM NOT AN ANIMAL" the entire time.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:03
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Technically no, because even though Nippon Tech has a tech level that allows for things like flying cars, laser rifles, and cloning, the computer tech is ridiculously underwhelming. Sneak preview! quote:Zarnftech Monolith: The RISC17-based Monolith computer features a single chip containing the 64 bit video co-processor, floating point co-processor, and voice recognition processor. Comes bundled with touchpad, 32Mb memory, multiple output option module, including both color and tactile compatibilities and a 1Gb optical drive. Memory can be increased to 256 Mb and up to seven additional optical drives can be daisy-chained to the primary drive. Tech predictions will never not be funny.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:21
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lmao at the Omi Video Transfer
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Apr 7, 2015 16:25
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Evil Mastermind posted:I'm actually getting very interested to see how people will react to the actual book given what everyone seems to be building it up to be. Evil Mastermind posted:Technically no, because even though Nippon Tech has a tech level that allows for things like flying cars, laser rifles, and cloning, the computer tech is ridiculously underwhelming.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:31
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Oh God, it's like the tech breakdown of the computers in the novel version of Jurassic Park.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:31
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Just to put those computers into further perspective: in 1990, 1 GB of storage would have cost around $10k.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:33
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Babe Magnet posted:lmao at the Omi Video Transfer I'm reminded of a French comic strip I read once, where the author speculated about the 80/90's equivalent of steampunk (only with less "Imperialism and being rich is awesome!"), where the main character is shown to have downloaded the latest episode of Game of Thrones, via modem, from a videotex-based Netflix, onto a VHS tape he then puts into his VHS player. LatwPIAT fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 16:37
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 Hey so if anyone wants that Duckman RPG, we just wrote the game (based mostly on a few notes and then our improvised "review"), added a few fixes based on you folks, and then put it on our website along with our newest Afterthought episode. It's exactly as ludicrously overcomplicated as a 90s licensed game should be and we don't recommend playing, reading, or directly handling it.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:44
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^^^ Far more and far better work than goes into a lot of "real" RPG projects.  Evil Mastermind posted:Tech predictions will never not be funny. "RISC15"? Wow. It's like one of two fundamental ways of building computer chips, but fifteen-er. That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 16:46
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Plague of Hats posted:^^^ Far more and far better work than goes into a lot of "real" RPG projects. Right? And up to seven drives can be daisy-chained! I remember daisy chains! Oh, the memories.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:50
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theironjef posted:
 That's a hell of a lot of work for an April Fool's gag. Kudos!
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Apr 7, 2015 16:53
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quote:Misaki XE Laptop Computer: The hottest selling portable in Marketplace and Nippon, this unit features a fast RISC15 processor - a single chip containing the 16 bit video co-processor, floating point co-processor, and voice recognition processor. Comes with 16 Mb memory, 100 Mb storage, and weighs less than four pounds. Think of the recipes you could put on that thing 
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Apr 7, 2015 16:57
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Evil Mastermind posted:Just to put those computers into further perspective: in 1990, 1 GB of storage would have cost around $10k. I slightly curious as to why it seems that "nobody" who wrote about fictional future computers seemed to have heard of, or considered, just applying Moore's Law. Was is just that unknown back then? LatwPIAT fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 16:58
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Kurieg posted:The War Beast Okay I'll give them some credit for this. Bipedal war-moose is pretty cool, outside of any context.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:59
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LatwPIAT posted:I slightly curious as to why it seems that nobody who wrote about fictional future computers seemed to have heard of, or considered, just applying Moore's Law. Was is just that unknown back then? My dad was teaching me about Moore's Law in 1996. Perhaps the authors just weren't that plugged into technology?
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Apr 7, 2015 17:01
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